Meeting Public Comments

Janis Katsu

If I understand the bill correctly, provisional ballots will be required by all who register on the same day as voting. Certain perameters are required for the ballot to be accepted as a vote. If my assumption is correct, is ERIC used to validate the ballot? I feel all electronic systems have been compromised and therefor other methods need to be sought after.

Josh Rozendaal

This is by far, not a very well thought out piece of legislation. This provisional ballot requirement is completely unnecessary and I don't fully understand why this bill was even written. At the precinct on election day, the electronic poll books are designed in such a way to allow for the precinct official to determine a voter's eligibility. The same applies to early voting at a satellite where poll books are also generally used. When a voter votes early in the Auditor's Office, the statewide voter registration database is used to determine a voter's eligibility. All those things make this bill completely unneeded. The change allowing counties to NOT use optical scan voting equipment is only written to further the conspiracy to outlaw voting machines. In reality, voting machines are historically very reliable, tested before being used on election day, and audited post election after being used.Impacts of this bill:1. Unnecessary burdens to properly eligible voters.2. Unnecessary burdens to Auditor's Offices who have to research each and every provisional ballot when there could easily be several hundred Election Day Registrants.3. Unnecessary burdens for the Absentee & Special Voters Precinct Board to review several hundred additional provisional ballots.4. Potentially delayed results, or the appearance of fluctuating results when hundreds of provisional ballots are reviewed and tabulated after unofficial results are published on election night. These hundreds of additional ballots being tabulated post election day only fuel the "Stop the Steal" propaganda even though the ballots should rightfully be tabulated if the voter is determined to be eligible.

Sharon Schiefen

Any person voting should be properly vetted by Iowa law before their vote is counted. By not keeping these ballots separated before they are validated could allow the votes to be counted even if they later did not qualify, but by then we would not be able to identify and remove them. This in no way hinders anyone's ability to cast a vote. Better yet, all voters should be registered by election day.

Michael Bayer

I support HF 342. Specifically, I support the requirement for Election Day Registrants to vote a provisional ballot. If they vote a regular ballot, the ballot is counted before the voter has verified in the manner that a preregistered voter should be. The provisional ballot should not be counted until the voter has been vetted with the normal procedures. These procedures are outlined in the Iowa Administrative Code. I support the ability of county commissioners to decide in advance of an election whether to use tabulating machines or hand counting of ballots. For evidence, I would point to the 2022 election of House District 81 in which the hand count reversed the machine count.

Randy Hefel

I support H.F. 342. Persons registering to vote the same day need to be properly vetted prior to allowing their ballot to be counted. This helps to give the election commissioner the time to do just that. I also agree with making electronic tabulators and optical scanners optional. County commissioners that want to use hand counting can now do so. Thank you.