Meeting Public Comments

Lois Colleen Lawler []

Recent polling shows 43% of Americans have serious doubts about the honesty, openness or both concerning the 2024 election (2023 Public Affairs Pulse Survey, conducted Sept. 13 by Morning Consult). During such times, legislators should do their utmost to keep the election process transparent and honest. There has been a surge in public demand for paper ballots and hand counted results. HSB 268 would remove the option for elections of less than 3,500 to be counted by hand. Prior to widespread computer scanning tabulation machines in the 1960s, Iowa counted 1,273,810 votes in the NixonKennedy election. In 2020, Iowa tabulated 1,700,130 votes in the BidenTrump election. How is this such a change in ballot numbers that the use of handcounts should no longer be an option? California recently attempted to ban hand counting ballots, but even the bill Governor Newsome signed allows hand counting ballots in small districts (AB969). Iowans should have local control over the decision to handcount ballots.Concerning Sec.5.NEWSECTION.49.29 Electronic election register and poll book. On October 25, 2023, the U.S. Election Assistance Commissions Election Supporting Technology Evaluation Program (ESTEP) released findings from the Electronic Poll Book Pilot Program. This technology appears to be in need of lots of work from the basic findings: Background. Under the authority of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the EAC developed ESTEP, which was formally established by hiring its first director in 2022. ESTEP is responsible for the creation of draft standards and administration of pilot programs for technologies not covered under the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG). In response to the increasing demands from the public and various stakeholders, ESTEP piloted the nations first voluntary program for testing of EPBs on the federal level, to determine if federal certification is a viable solution in the foreseeable future of EPB usage during elections in the United States. Purpose. This Pilot Program was designed to create testable guidelines and materials for standardizing the security, accessibility, and usability of electronic poll books (EPBs) in the United States. Ultimately, the main objective of this pilot program is to create crossjurisdictional standards that ensure EPBs provide a positive user experience, can defend against networkrelated security threats, minimize human errors, and make the voting process accessible and efficient for all eligible voters. https://www.eac.gov/estepprogram/electronicpollbooksFrom Ap News: Despite their importance and potential vulnerabilities, national standards for the security and reliability of electronic pollbooks do not exist and efforts underway to develop them may not be ready or widely adopted in time for the 2024 presidential election. We have a trust issue in elections. The more we can say there are standards that equipment must be tested to, the better, said Larry Norden, an election security expert with the Brennan Center for Justice. Its like a seal of approval that really doesnt exist right now.https://apnews.com/article/arizonaunitedstatesgovernment2022midtermelectionsdonaldtrumplosangeles651d0e923973daf28ff3b9d6105b4d74?utmsource=copy&utmmedium=shareAdopting an electronic system which is neither proven nor readily accessible to the public does nothing to assuage voter apprehensions. Please stop these proposed changes to the voting code in subcommittee and leave the current code as it stands. Thankyou for your consideration.

Nicholas Thompson []

I vehemently oppose this as this bill removes powerfrom our local representatives to hold elections intheir own way. Trust in our elections and morespecifically the machines that tabulate them is at anall time low.. this would only worsen it. We should bemoving the other way.

Mary Krueger []

Taking away the right of cities to manage elections by requiring electronic processing is over reach. Let the cities decide for themselves.

Philip Tillman []

Regarding HSB 628: I object to the proposed changes in this bill to remove the option to hand count. To move toward total dependence on voting machines is a bad decision given the overwhelming evidence of fraud in using them. We the people want more transparency in elections and we want our votes to count, not be washed away by these unreliable voting machines.

Thomas McInerney []

I oppose the proposed elimination of the option, regardless of cost, for the local commissioner of elections to hand count ballots in elections with small turnout. The deference to accepting voting machines as the only means in conducting elections is tone deaf to the public concerns of the reliability and cost of their use.

Sharon Schiefen []

The elected officials need to be listening to the people who have put them into office. Citizens have been very concerned with election integrity for the last few years and one of the solutions that has been pushed forward is to go back to hand counting. For the SOS to be trying to change laws that would go directly against this makes me question who this will be benefiting. If anything, this law should be changed to allow any county, any size to decide if they would like to go back to hand counting. I would also object to the State officials from removing the authority previously held by the Local counties by removing their control of choosing the electronic registers and poll books. We now know that having the State level determine that we should be on ERIC system, was a bad idea, let's keep our elections at a local level.

Michael Bayer []

I strongly oppose sections 3,4, and 15 of this bill. There is no justification to remove an option the county commissioner has to hand count ballots if that makes sense for them. The SOS always says that in Iowa it is easy to vote and hard to cheat. These sections of this bill does neither.My experience with the SOS office and the experience of my associates is that the SOS is not at all transparent when it comes to their processes and motivations. We should treat any bill from the SOS with suspicion. What is the motivation for including moving to eliminate any possibility of hand counting ballots from Iowa law? Automatic tabulating machines are vulnerable to hackers as recently demonstrated by Professor Halderson in a Georgia courtroom. We need to allow hand counting and ultimately consider removing vulnerable tabulators!

Laura Carlson [Citizen]

This is not a good plan. We must be able to verify ballots. Period. Handcounting ballots is important for election integrity. Electronic ballots are not transparent to general public. I can go count ballots with my fellow citizens and verify counts. We need to return to paper ballots.

Margaret Stoldorf []

Please stop giving elections more political meaning. Towns 3500 population may not have the means to use any means other than hand counting.With distrust for elections at an extreme its time to reinforce and return trust in elections not use the heavy hand of politics to remove whatever trust remains.Please do not move this bill forward!!

Robert Nazario []

We must reestablish voter integrity at the polls and in our election processes. In order to accomplish this, our voter rolls MUST be purged annually and a return to paper ballots and hand counting is mandatory. Absentee ballots are accepted only by those in military or jobs living abroad and have to be returned no later than Election Day. Votes must be hand counted by trained individuals across the entire state regardless of population. We must not facilitate voter fraud by keeping these machines in play. If France can hand count ballots in their elections in one day; it can and should happen here! We must also have forensic audits on the books and codified.