Henry County auditors office looking to resolve future delays

HENRY COUNTY - While election results came out a little later than anticipated in Henry County during the primaries, county auditor Shelly Barber is working to make sure the same delay is not repeated in November.

For Barber and several other auditors in her district, a slow down with their absentee ballot machine resulted in a delay in results.

'It has nothing to do with accuracy,” Barber assured, 'The machines counted correctly, it just took longer to get the tally tape on election night.”

Barber explained she expected to get results published within an hour of polls closing but instead was delayed until closer to two hours (at 11 p.m.) before she received results. Barber also explained the delay only occurred with the absentee ballot processing machine - no other machines had the same issue.

'When I finally called and got a hold of [the vendor], they told me to shut the machine off and turn it back on,” Barber said, which eventually yielded the tally tape and results. Barber said she works with Adkins, a fairly well-used voting machine vendor throughout auditors offices in Iowa.

In Henry County, absentee ballots amounted to more than half of all ballots cast (2,750 of 3690). Barber anticipates there will be a higher-than-usual number of absentee ballots during the general election due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In addition to a larger number of ballots, Barber said the absentee ballot machine is programmed to read all 12 different ballots from voters across the county, whereas precinct ballots are only programmed to read two.

Davis County auditor Linda Humphrey said she faced a similar slow down but only saw a twenty minute delay in processing absentee ballots.

'It sounds like everybody was having the same problem because the machine distributors kind of warned us ahead of time things were going to run slow,” Humphrey said, noting her office is used to waiting only two to three minutes for results.

'It was just slower than usual but it didn't throw us off. This is the first time this has happened to us. We've had machine problems before that were due to operator error. This is the first time it was the machines,” she added.

Both Barber and Humphrey, who have reached out to Adkins about the delay, said no official reason has been given as to why the delay occurred but that the company is working to make sure the delay is not repeated. Come November, Barber said she is expecting an even larger number of absentee ballots in light of the presidential election, which is why resolving the issue with the machines is one of her top priorities. A representative from Adkins could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.