DES MOINES (AP) — A special precinct board decided Thursday that absentee ballots cast by 50 Grinnell College students and challenged by leaders of the Poweshiek County Republican Party will be counted.

The GOP challenged the ballots because the students listed the main campus mailing address and a post office box, not their actual residence hall, when they registered to vote.

County elections officials said the ballots didn’t change the outcome of any races.

“We weren’t looking for a game-changer here. We were not trying to affect the race or change the outcome, and we weren’t trying to make it so that individuals couldn’t vote,” said GOP county co-chairman Rick Jacoby. “That was not our intent. Our intent was to see that all individuals followed the law.”

He and chairman Harry Meek filed the complaints Monday. Elections officials alerted students that evening that they must clarify their residency information in time for the board’s meeting on Thursday afternoon.

Poweshiek County Auditor Diana Dawley said the board believed the students responded appropriately to the complaints. In previous years students at the liberal arts college have used the school’s mailing address of 1115 Eighth Ave. to register to vote without any complaints, she said.

But, Dawley said state elections officials have indicated that the policy will likely have to change after this week’s challenge.

“It’s probably something we need to clarify, and I’m sure the students will be willing to do whatever it takes” in the future, she said.

A spokeswoman for Grinnell College said earlier this week that many of the school’s 1,600 students live on campus. While the residence halls have physical addresses, the students do not receive mail there and that’s why they listed the main address where the campus post office is located, she said.

Jacoby said the GOP will watch to see how the situation is rectified.

He added that Republican leaders in the county have concerns about out-of-state students voting in local races, such as bond measures, that they don’t have a long-term interest in.

“We would like to see these students vote in their own states so they would be knowledgeable and have a vested interest in voting in their home states,” he said.