Iowa Voters

The 2002 Help America Vote Act sent $30 million to Iowa for new voting equipment, training, and voter education. Now a federal audit at the Election Assistance Commission says less than 2% of the money was not spent according to Hoyle. Iowa must reimburse itself this money–some $575,000 by the end of this year.

But the real scandal was the money that was “properly” spent on touchscreen voting machines that have since been scrapped. If anyone wants to criticize then SoS Chet Culver, it should be for that foolish purchase, taken when the flaws of paperless voting were well known and public skepticism was running high.

But no, that scandal is forgotten. Even the federal Election Assistance Commission, which is looking over Culver’s shoulder in this audit, would never admit that touchscreens were folly. Many states still use them.

This is a trivial scandal compared to the Iowa film tax credits or to most audit scandals you read of. The original audit charges were that nearly ten percent of the money had been misspent, but the EAC has now vindicated the Iowa SoS and has dropped the majority of the charges.

The remaining complaints don’t show that the public was cheated so much as they show Culver failed to follow some rules. He failed to get a competitive bid before hiring a consultant to conduct public meetings and otherwise help prepare the HAVA plan for Iowa. He allowed a voter education project to cover too many topics, some of which are now said to be not educational. He spent some money celebrating the Voting Rights Act and on Get Out the Vote radio ads that should not have been paid with HAVA money.

So now Iowa must pay this money back to the Iowa HAVA account at the Secretary of State’s Office. You see, the expenditures may have all been legitimate–it’s just that they weren’t in line with the HAVA rules for using federal money. It’s not clear which other Iowa source of funds will be tapped for this money. No money goes back to Washington, D.C.

That’s it! No one claims the consultant (Iowa Public Policy Group) did a poor job. Their contract is more than three quarters of the money at issue. This could indeed be favoritism of some sort on Culver’s behalf, so let’s wait to see if anyone makes that claim. I’m not very sympathetic when competitive bidding rules are ignored. Shame on Culver. Had there been a competitive contract, maybe we would have saved a few bucks.

We still would have had touchscreens at the end of it. That’s the real scandal.

The Attorney General of Michigan has ruled that voted paper ballots can be obtained by the public under Michigan freedom of information laws.

A person must be allowed to inspect or examine voted ballots, which are not traceable to the individual voter, and to receive copies of the ballots upon request subject to reasonable restrictions prescribed by the Secretary of State. The public body may charge a fee for the copying of the voted ballots . . . .

The ballots cannot be so accessed until 30 days after the election has been certified. By that time all recounts will have been finished. Only people who want to audit voting machines as a routine practice are likely to be interested in exercising this right. Such an inspection would not overturn the results of a race even if problems were found with the official tally of votes.

The Code of Iowa lists many documents that are exempt from Iowa’s freedom of information statute, but ballots are not mentioned at all. Four years ago the mis-managed voting machines in Pottawattamie County led to a FOIA request, but no ballots were requested. The chance that you may win the right to inspect old ballots still in the hands of your county auditor has just gone up, thanks to the Michigan ruling.

hat tip/Jan BenDor