Secretary of State Chet Culver said in Ames on Friday that he was “extremely concerned” about election officials’ actions that led to nearly 100 people being turned away from a satellite voting station Thursday at Parks Library — in violation of Iowa law, he said.

He also said the Story County Auditor’s office would provide satellite voting from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 1 at the library in an attempt “to remedy the problems for those who were denied the right to vote.”

The voting station closed at 3 p.m. Thursday with dozens of people standing in line waiting to fill out absentee ballots. Election officials told them to leave and said they were required to close the station at the posted time.

The Iowa Administrative Code, however, requires election officials at satellite absentee voting stations to close “after everyone has voted who arrived before the time established to close the station,” a passage of the law Culver read aloud at a news conference outside the library Friday afternoon.

“It was clearly a violation of election law,” Culver said.

Culver also wrote a letter Friday to Story County Auditor Mary Mosiman asking her to explain by Wednesday why the station was closed early. He said he was considering issuing a technical infraction notice to Mosiman, contingent on her explanation.

“This is very troubling. This doesn’t happen in Iowa,” he said.

The satellite voting at the library and at the Memorial Union this week allowed people to register to vote and cast their ballots at the same time. The deadline for registering for the Nov. 2 election is 5 p.m. Saturday, so the Nov. 1 satellite voting will allow only those previously registered to vote.

“I feel that this is a fair step to take,” Culver said. “This is a wake-up call for all of us in election administration.”

Mosiman told The Associated Press that the early closing was an error.

“It’s something to be learned from; however, it did happen, and that can’t be undone,” she said.Check Monday’s Daily for more on this story.