(Des Moines) A bill advancing in the Iowa House would change parts of the process for election recounts in Iowa, including a new composition of election recount boards and lowering the margin at which the state will foot the bill for a recount.
House File 596 relates to recounts of elections and election contests at all levels and would require a discrepancy of 1% of the total votes or less between the assumed winning candidate and the candidate requesting the recount.
Under current law, if a recount is requested for a margin of 50 votes, or 1% of the vote or less, the state will pay for the recount process. HF 596 stipulates the state would only cover the cost of a recount if the margin were 0.1% or less. In all other instances, the candidate, or their committee, would have to pay a bond to cover the costs associated with the recount if it fails to change the result.
Election recount boards currently consist of a designee selected by each candidate and a person chosen jointly by the designees. The bill would amend the recount boards to include up to five individuals from each candidate, the county commissioner of elections, their staff and staff hired by the commissioner during the election to tally ballots.
Adam Wedmore, on behalf of the Iowa State Association of County Auditors, which registered undecided, said the association worried the removal of the “third, neutral member” of the recount board would put too much of the decision on auditors.
“We don’t want to get in the middle of a partisan decision,” Wedmore said.
Rep. Adam Zabner, D-Iowa City, agreed that putting the decision more in the hands of elected auditors could “maybe lead to a little less trust in the system.”
“I’m not super happy with how the three-member board system works now, but it at least provides some sort of fairness and certainty,” Zabner said. “I would like to see some way to make sure that people can expect fairness from those recount boards.”
The bill also increases the number of district judges who would serve on the court for the trial of contested public measures, offices and county officials, from three judges to five. Additionally, the bill allows the outcomes of these cases to be appealed to the state supreme court.
Lobbyists on the bill were all registered undecided and asked lawmakers for additional clarification on several lines, like the amount of the bond posted by candidates requesting a recount, if county auditors could still perform their own recounts in the event of something like a machine malfunction and if there were a start date for candidates requesting a recount.
Representatives advanced the bill from the subcommittee, and chair Rep. Austin Harris said amendments to the bill would likely come on the House floor rather than earlier in the process to avoid the approaching funnel deadline for bills to pass committee.
