Story County Auditor Mary Mosiman said workers were overwhelmed Thursday by unusually long lines at a satellite voting station on campus and defended her office from charges that her decision to turn away potential voters reflected incompetence or a political motive.

Satellite voting and on-site registration were offered on campus Monday through Thursday last week. Mosiman said more people attempted to vote Thursday than in previous days.

Poll workers were running out of ballots, Mosiman said, and didn’t have enough runners to expedite the voting process or to get more ballots before the posted closing time of 3 p.m.

“I did make a judgment call,” she said.

That call was incorrect, Secretary of State Chet Culver said Friday at a news conference outside Parks Library, where Thursday’s voting took place.

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

The Iowa Administrative Code requires election officials at satellite absentee voting stations to close “after everyone has voted who arrived before the time established to close the station,” according to a passage of the law Culver read aloud Friday. He also announced the auditor’s office will 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.”

Mosiman said she and other auditor’s office employees will learn from the incident.

This was the first time Story County offered satellite voting on campus during the period voters could still register, which ended Saturday. Mosiman said she hoped the attention brought to the satellite voting issue would spur discussions about how the extra stations are run in the state’s 99 counties — of which, she said, fewer than 10 actually use satellite voting.

“There’s not a lot of consistency among the counties that do offer it,” she said.

Culver sent a letter Friday to Mosiman asking her to explain why voters were turned away and saying he was considering issuing a technical infraction notice.

He also cited a 2002 dispute between Mosiman and Jan Bauer, chairwoman of the Story County Democratic Party, about Mosiman’s selections of the timing and location of satellite voting stations for that year’s election.

“This is the second time we’ve had problems with satellite voting in this county in two years,” he said.

“That’s why this is even more of a concern.”

Jim Hutter, Mosiman’s Democratic opponent in the county auditor race, said he was “shocked” by Thursday’s events.

“For the auditor to say she didn’t have enough staff, she didn’t have enough ballots — just shows a lack of organization and a lack of interest,” he said. “Clearly, she is not helping Iowa State students vote.”

Mosiman said some of Culver’s and Hutter’s criticisms were “partisan.”

“I want very much to service my voters out there in any way that I can,” she said. “If I had been better prepared, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Culver, a Democrat, said his criticism was about the law and not about politics.

Amber Hard, state director of the New Voters Project, which was responsible for much of the increase in student registration at Iowa State, said she thought Mosiman’s office made “an honest mistake.”

“They just weren’t prepared for what happens when students exercise their right to vote,” she said.

Mosiman said Thursday’s problems wouldn’t be repeated.

“The only mistake is not anticipating the high turnout on Thursday compared to the other three days,” she said.

“Just like I have concerns that this did happen, voters should understand that this will not happen again.”