The tabulation of ballots cast by means of an electronic voting system, at a counting center established pursuant to this chapter, shall be conducted as follows:
1. The sealed ballot container from each precinct shall be delivered to the counting center by two of the election officials of that precinct, not members of the same political party, who shall travel together in the same vehicle and shall have the container under their immediate joint control until they surrender it to the commissioner or the commissioner's designee in charge of the counting center. The commissioner or designee shall, in the presence of the two precinct election officials who delivered the container, enter on a record kept for the purpose that the container was received, the time the container was received, and the condition of the seal upon receipt.
2. After the record required by subsection 1 has been made, the ballot container shall be opened. If any ballot is found damaged or defective, so that it cannot be counted properly by the automatic tabulating equipment, a true duplicate shall be made by the resolution board team and substituted for the damaged or defective ballot, or, as an alternative, the valid votes on a defective ballot may be manually counted at the counting center by the resolution board, whichever method is best suited to the system being used. All duplicate ballots shall be clearly labeled as such, and shall bear a serial number which shall also be recorded on the damaged or defective ballot.
The resolution board shall also tabulate any write-in votes which were cast. Write-in votes cast for a candidate whose name appears on the ballot for the same office shall be counted as a vote for the candidate indicated, if the vote is otherwise properly cast. Ballots which are rejected by the tabulating equipment as blank because they have been marked with an unreadable marker shall be duplicated or tabulated as required by this subsection for damaged or defective ballots.
3. The record printed by the automatic tabulating equipment, with the addition of a record of any write-in or other votes manually counted pursuant to this chapter, shall constitute the official return of the precinct. Upon completion of the tabulation of the votes from each individual precinct, the result shall be announced and reported in substantially the manner required by section 50.11.
4. If for any reason it becomes impracticable to count all or any part of the ballots with the automatic tabulation equipment, the commissioner may direct that they be counted manually, in accordance with chapter 50 so far as applicable.
[C77, 79, 81, § 52.37]
92 Acts, ch 1034, § 2; 93 Acts, ch 143, § 29
Referred to in § 52.32, 52.40
Iowa General Assembly
Search: Iowa Code 1995
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