Bill changing Iowa election recount process heads to governor's desk
Voters cast their ballots in the 2024 general election at Plymouth United Church of Christ polling location in Des Moines on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
The Iowa Senate sent legislation to the governor Monday making changes to Iowa's election recount process.
House File 928, passed 31-14, would change who can request a recount for an election in Iowa. In races for local offices and the Iowa Legislature, there would need to be difference of 1% or 50 votes between the candidates — whichever is less — for a candidate to request a recount. For statewide and federal races, the bill would require a 0.15% difference.
Election recount boards would change from their current make-up of a person designated by each candidate, alongside one other individual agreed upon by both candidates. The new system would have county auditors lead the board with their staff and hired election workers, with a requirement that boards must have equal numbers of workers from each political party. Candidates could also be able to choose up to five people to observe the recount in each county.
Sen. Ken Rozenboom, R-Oskaloosa, said these changes put Iowa's recount process in line with other states, and addresses existing problems with potential conflicts of interest that exist in allowing campaigns to oversee the recount process.
'There's no uniformity, no reliability or enforcement,' Rozenboom said. 'That creates distrust the system.'
However, Sen. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, said the proposed changes to the recount system — allowing auditors to oversee election recounts — could create conflicts of interest if they are the incumbent party involved in an election recount. Rozenboom countered that county auditors would still be bound by the law to fairly administer recounts.
'I understand the nature of your question, but in the unlikely event that that happens, there's still their responsibility to do that,' Rozenboom said. 'And please note that there will be observers to watch that process.'
But Winckler said the current recount process serves Iowa well, without bringing up potential conflicts of interest posed by the county auditor — who is a partisan elected official — and their staff overseeing the process.
Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, D-West Des Moines, said in the recount elections she has been involved in, 'balance' in the process was not an issue as both candidates got to appoint a member of the recount board, and saying that candidates 'come out with much greater respect for the process' for ensuring fair election results.
'What we will have if we shift through this new model is candidates feeling very suspicious, very uncertain and not knowing if they can trust what they're hearing as part of this process — and not feeling represented in it,' Trone Garriott said. 'Just because someone is a member of the same political party does not ensure that that person has that candidate's best interest at heart, or is qualified to be the representative, or is qualified to be part of this process.'
Rozenboom argued that these criticisms do not acknowledge that partisan county auditors are already overseeing elections.
'If we trust them to conduct the election in the first place, it seems reasonable to me that we would trust them to conduct a recount,' Rozenboom said.
The bill would also implement an earlier deadline for requesting a recount, requiring requests be submitted by the end of the day of the second Wednesday after an election. The current deadline is the second Friday after an election. Recounts would be requested through the Secretary of State's office for legislative, statewide and federal races, a change from the current system where campaigns make requests to each county auditor.
Another portion of the bill requires recounts to be conducted using vote tabulators, whereas current law allows hand-counting in some areas.
Rozenboom said the measure will bring 'consistency, reliability, fairness, uniformity and enforcement' to the state's election recounts.
'Election law is maybe the most important legislation that we can pass in this state, because election law, fair elections, are the absolute bedrock of our system of government,' Rozenboom said. 'This legislation will correct flaws in our current system.'
The bill, approved by the House in late March, now goes to Gov. Kim Reynolds.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
House-Senate conference committee on budget formed
Legislative leaders have named the eight budget writers they want to resolve the seismic split between competing versions of a two-year spending plan that cleared each house of the New Hampshire Legislature. Senate President Sharon Carson and House Speaker Sherman Packard, both R-Londonderry, acted quickly in a sign that it could take some time for the two sides to find common ground. 'There are differences between the House and Senate-approved versions of the state budget. We look forward to working through them over the next two weeks and remain committed to delivering a balanced budget that protects New Hampshire taxpayers while serving all Granite Staters,' Packard and Carson said in a joint statement. As the first-named House member, Rep. Kenneth Weyler, R-Kingston, is likely to become chairman of the conference committee. Weyler chaired the House Finance Committee. The other four House members, who also serve on Weyler's committee, are Vice Chairman Dan McGuire, R-Kingston, House Deputy Majority Leader Joe Sweeney, R-Salem, Rep. Jose Cambrils, R-Loudon and Rep. Mary Jane Wallner, D-Concord and the ranking Democrat. Packard decided to name some alternates who had other experiences beyond writing the budget. The potential stand-ins are House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, R-Auburn, House Executive Departments and Administration Committee Vice Chairman Erica Layon, R-Derry, House Ways and Means Chairman John Janigian, R-Salem, Rep. Keith Erf, R-Weare, and Rep. Jess Edwards, R-Auburn. Erf and Edwards each co-chair subcommittees on the House Finance Committee. Carson names herself to commitee Carson chose to name herself as the first senator on the panel along with Senate Finance Chairman James Gray, R-Rochester, and Senate Deputy Democratic Leader Cindy Rosenwald of Nashua, the ranking Democratic Senate budget writer. The only Senate alternate is Majority Leader Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead. Most House speakers don't get involved directly in state budget negotiations. It's not unusual for Senate presidents to get into the fray, however. Carson's predecessor, former Senate President Chuck Morse, took the gavel after serving as Senate finance chairman for many years. The House and Senate meet Thursday to complete the naming of all conference committees that will try and forge compromise on other bills. They have until June 19 to reach agreements and then the House and Senate have to vote on all of them by June 26. The $15.4 billion House-passed budget relied on conservative revenue estimates, which meant their budget writers had to make deep cuts in spending. The House plan would lay off 100 workers in the state prison system and do away with the Office of the Child Advocate, the state Division on the Arts, the Commission on Aging and the Housing Appeals Board. The Senate updated the predictions for revenue, which meant it could spend about $250 million more in state dollars than the House plan did. The Senate budget pared the layoffs down to about 25 in the Department of Corrections. It kept the child advocate office in the running while erasing four of nine jobs, revived support for the arts by proposing a new business tax credit for companies that donate to the program and restoring groups on aging and housing appeals, though with smaller budgets than the ones that Gov. Kelly Ayotte proposed last February. The Senate plan also increased by nearly $70 million the level of state aid to the University System of New Hampshire compared to the House budget. USNH would receive in the Senate proposal $85 million a year, about a 10% cut from its support in the current state budget that ends June 30. klandrigan@


New York Post
27 minutes ago
- New York Post
Looks like it's up to Hochul to kill the monstrous ‘assisted suicide' bill
New York is on track to become the 12th state to legalize 'assisted suicide' — and with the most radical law yet. The state Senate was rushing to vote late Monday on Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal's Medical Aid in Dying Act, with insiders certain the wheels were fully greased for passage. So it'll be up to Gov. Kathy Hochul to wield her veto and prevent a disgraceful mistake. Again, the New York bill breaks new ground — or sinks to a newer low. All 11 other states (Delaware became No. 11 last month) require a waiting period before you get your suicide-meds prescription filled; it's 15 days in Oregon but could be less than 24 hours in New York. The Empire State bill also has no real mechanism for tracking how many deaths it brings: Some commissioner is supposed to review a 'sample' of patient medical records and produce a yearly report to the Legislature on how it's going; that's it. Beyond the details, this is fundamentally about a reinvention of the medical profession: Out goes 'do no harm,' in comes a 'calculation' as to whether a given life is still worth living. With the state, and insurance companies, having a clear financial interest in ending 'marginal' lives and those whose care costs 'too much.' Anyone who wants to die can, in fact, find a way: This is purely about giving 'assisted suicide' the moral force of law, a big first step on the way to euthanasia for those with chronic conditions — even Alzheimer's. Canada is about to expand its law to allow 'doctor-assisted' killing in some cases where the underlying condition is mental disease, such as depression or anxiety. Advocates claim New York's bill covers only people with terminal diagnoses and six months or less to live — but 'terminal' isn't as exact a term as it sounds, and any diagnosis is simply a doctor's best guess. It's entirely appropriate that the chief Democratic resistance to this bill has been among lawmakers of color: Philosophically as well as historically, euthanasia is intimately connected with eugenics. That is: The same geniuses who imagine that humanity can be 'scientifically' improved by eliminating 'inferior characteristics' from the breeding pool also tend to think 'experts' can calculate which lives have values less than zero. Embrace that pseudo-mathematics, and soon enough the smart set will be busy 'helping' the disabled and those suffering chronic illnesses to 'realize' they're better off ending their lives. We have no idea what back-room deals suddenly made this bill a priority at the very end of the legislative session; it certainly wasn't any shift in public opinion. Hochul should do the right thing and kill the bill: At the very least, that'll force its supporters to explain why New York must have fewer safeguards than any state against abuse of a law that turns doctors into executioners.


San Francisco Chronicle
32 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
GOP House Homeland chairman Green to retire from Congress early
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The House Homeland Security Committee's chairman, Republican Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, announced Monday that he will retire from Congress once the House votes again on the sprawling tax and budget policy bill backed by President Donald Trump. In a statement, Green said he was offered a private sector opportunity that was 'that was too exciting to pass up' so he informed House Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday of his retirement plans. The move comes more than a year after Green announced he wouldn't run again in 2024, but changed his mind when fellow Republicans implored him to stick around. Green's next election would have been in 2026. Green voted for Trump's sweeping legislation when it passed the House last month. The bill is now in the Senate's hands, and would need to return to the House for agreement on any changes. Trump wants the bill on his desk for his signature by July 4. Green's delayed departure could help with the GOP's narrow margins in the House. Republican leaders need every vote they can get on their big tax bill, which they managed to pass last month by a single vote and will have to pass again once changes are made in the Senate. They now have a 220-212 majority. 'It was the honor of a lifetime to represent the people of Tennessee in Congress," Green said. "They asked me to deliver on the conservative values and principles we all hold dear, and I did my level best to do so.' Green's seat will be decided in a special election. The timing will depend on when he leaves office. Ahead of his 2024 reelection, Green had announced that February 2024 he would not run again. The decision was revealed a day after the impeachment of then-President Joe Biden's Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. But many fellow Republicans had called on him to reconsider, and he jumped back into the running just two weeks later. He was unopposed in the Republican primary and then defeated Democrat Megan Barry — the former Nashville mayor who resigned in 2018 in scandal — by more than 21 percentage points in November 2024. Green, 60, has served since 2019 in the 7th Congressional District, which was redrawn in 2022 to include a significant portion of Nashville. The city was carved up three ways in the 2022 redistricting so Republicans could flip a Democratic district in Congress that had covered Music City, which they successfully did. Green flirted running for governor in 2017, but suspended his campaign after he was nominated by former President Donald Trump to become the Army secretary. He later withdrew his nomination due to criticism over his remarks about Muslims and LGBTQ+ Americans.