Within five days before the date of any election at which votes are to be cast by means of an electronic voting system and tabulated at a counting center established under section 52.34, the commissioner in charge of the counting center where votes so cast are to be tabulated shall have the automatic tabulating equipment tested to ascertain that it will correctly count the votes cast for all offices and on all public questions. The procedure for conducting the test shall be as follows:
1. For any election to fill a partisan office, the county chairperson of each political party shall be notified in writing of the time the test will be conducted, so that they may be present or have a representative present. For every election, the commissioner shall include such notice in the notice of the election published as required by section 49.53. The test shall be open to the public.
2. The test shall be conducted by processing a preaudited group of ballots punched or marked so as to record a predetermined number of valid votes for each candidate, and on each public question, on the ballot. The test group shall include for each office and each question one or more ballots having votes in excess of the number allowed by law for that office or question, in order to test the ability of the automatic tabulating equipment to reject such votes. Any observer may submit an additional test group of ballots which, if so submitted, shall also be tested. The state commissioner shall promulgate administrative rules establishing procedures for any additional test group of ballots submitted by an observer. If any error is detected, its cause shall be ascertained and corrected and an errorless count obtained before the automatic tabulating equipment is approved. When so approved, a statement attesting to the fact shall be signed by the commissioner and kept with the records of the election.
3. The test group of ballots used for the test shall be clearly labeled as such, and retained in the counting center. The test prescribed in subsection 2 shall be repeated immediately before the start of the official tabulation of ballots cast in the election, and again immediately after the tabulation is completed. The test group of ballots and the programs used for the counting procedure shall be sealed, retained for the time required for and disposed of in the same manner as ballots cast in the election.
[C77, 79, 81, § 52.35]
86 Acts, ch 1224, § 26; 97 Acts, ch 170, § 63; 98 Acts, ch 1123, § 9
Referred to in §49.53, 52.38
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