Henry County auditor wants to add vote-county machine

MT. PLEASANT - As the general election approaches, Henry County Auditor Shelly Barber is continuing to prepare for what she knows will be a very different Election Day.

Barber and other auditors across Iowa were informed last week that the secretary of state would provide subgrants for elections through the CARES Act to help address additional costs the offices will incur due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Barber said the email she received said each county would get a $10,000 base grant and an additional $600 per precinct, including absentee. For Henry County, that would mean $16,000 in grant funds. The money would have to be spent on 2020 elections and used by Dec. 31, 2020. The email notes 'any money remaining must be returned to the federal government.”

'In the primary, we only got $3,000,” Barber said.

Further guidance and instruction on how those funds can be used is expected to come early the following week. But even without the guidance, Barber has several areas she knows she would like to put the money toward.

'Postage will be a large thing,” Barber said. With the uptick in requests for mail-in ballots, the auditor is expecting to spend at least several thousand dollars on getting ballots out to voters. Currently, about 1,300 Henry County voters have already requested to receive their ballots through the mail.

'We're in August and around this time, I usually only have a handful of requests,” Barber said.

In the 2016 general election, Barber said approximately 4,490 absentee ballots were counted. This year, she anticipates upward of 6,000 absentee ballots, which would include mail in and early voting.

'People are already walking in here asking, ‘When can we vote early?' Early voting starts Oct. 5,” Barber said.

Barber is hoping to invest in a vote-counting machine that would expedite the count for the absentee ballots.

'The hope is to have a new machine … It feeds absentee ballots through super fast and totals out super fast. It's about $7,800 for one,” Barber said.

With a higher number of absentee ballots, Barber wants to make sure getting results will be as efficient as possible. She explained improving the absentee ballot machine is crucial because it intakes all 12 different style ballots whereas machines for other precincts usually only need to be programmed for two or three.

The emphasis on improving the speed at which absentee ballots are counted comes after Barber and auditors across the state experienced a slow down during the primary election due to a higher volume of ballots than offices usually deal with.

Following updates the machines will go through in preparation for the upcoming election, distributors of the vote-counting machines told Barber each machine can handle about 900 to 1,000 ballots easily and will provide results within 15 minutes. With 6,000 absentee ballots expected to come in, the new machine would be crucial in improving efficiency.

'Those will be the main things to spend the grant money on - equipment and postage,” Barber said.

The county auditor added she's not sure what else she would be able to spend the funds on that are directly related to the changes caused by the pandemic.

'All of our personal protective equipment is provided for. The state is giving that to us at no cost,” she said.