Benton County canvass: hand count in Vinton 2 matched machines; board approves resolution 2591

Elections staff reported to the board that the Secretary of State selected Vinton 2 for a post-election hand count and that the county’s bipartisan three-person team hand-counted 101 ballots. Speaker 2 said the hand count matched the machine totals: “it matched exactly what the machine said we had.” The county will certify those results back to the Secretary of State.

During the canvass, staff flagged several write-in spellings for the same person in one race. Speaker 1 explained multiple spellings of “Megan Hunter” (variants such as Meaghan, Meagan and Megan) and asked the board whether to treat those as the voters’ intent for a single candidate. Speaker 3 moved to consolidate the spellings as one candidate; David Cooper seconded and the motion carried.

Speaker 1 walked the board through that the packet has been reorganized by entity to make the canvas easier to follow and reviewed the counts for a series of cities and school districts that comprise the first-tier canvass. Staff noted Iowa Code tie-break rules referenced in the packet (identified in the meeting as “Iowa code 50.44 and 37611 subsection 1”) requiring, in some circumstances, names be drawn from a hat to declare a winner when appropriate. The board then moved and approved Resolution 2591 to adopt the first-tier canvas for school elections; the motion passed by voice vote.

Staff described administrative follow-ups: mail elected officials their certificates, include information and links for a new open-meetings training (staff said newly elected officials have 90 days to complete the training), and collect a small number of additional signed abstracts or certificates for races where spellings required clarification.

Next steps: staff will mail certificates and training notices to newly elected officials, complete any outstanding abstracts, and certify the canvass to the Secretary of State.