(Atlantic) The Cass County Board of Supervisors approved Auditor Kathy Somers’ request for an administrative audit of the Atlantic 3 precinct from the Primary Election. The polling place for the precinct was the Cass County Community Center.
Somers explained that the voting machine recorded 118 ballots cast, while the paper ballots counted at the end of the night and the signed declarations of eligibility totaled 119.
Somers said the highly qualified precinct election officials noticed that the ballot count was off between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m., while the totals had matched earlier in the day.
Somers said one possibility is that a voter may have walked away with a ballot and not inserted it into the machine. However, because the paper ballot was included in the end-of-night count, the discrepancy points more toward a potential issue with the machine.
Under Iowa Code, Somers said election officials are required to run the ballots through the same machine again to determine whether it will count them correctly.
