Story County Auditor Lucy Martin requested an administrative recount at a special meeting of the Story County Board of Supervisors Thursday to be conducted Friday.
“An administrative recount is called if we have any irregularities and we are worried about the numbers,” Martin said.
New unofficial results uploaded late Friday afternoon on the Story County website state that after an administrative recount, updates were made in the Slater/Sheldahl precinct.
The original count had 49,653 ballots cast from Story County. The updated one has 49,715. Vice President Kamala Harris received 26,702 votes in Story County, while Former President Donald Trump had 21,567 in the original count. The updated count resulted in 26,715 for Harris and 21,614 votes for Trump.
In the original count for Senate races, incumbent Jesse Green (R) led Margaret Liston (D) by 12 votes for Senate District 24. The second count resulted in Green in the lead by 23 votes with 50.33%.
In House District 48, Chad Behn (R) led opponent Penny Vossler (D) by just five votes in the initial unofficial results. The recount ended with a 33-vote lead for Behn.
The results of House Districts 49, 50 and 51 remained the same, along with Senate Districts 26 and 28.
The recount was requested due to polling places in Story County reporting machine failure early on Election Day in 13 precincts:
- Huxley Two/Palestine Twp
- Story City 1
- Story City 2/Lafayette Twp/Howard Twp
- Zearing/Lincoln/Sherman Twp
- Roland/Howard Twp
- Milford Township
- Slater/Sheldahl
- McCallsburg/ Warren Twp
- Nevada 1/Richland Twp
- Nevada 2/Grant Twp 2
- Nevada 4/Nevada Twp
- Washington Township
- Maxwell/Indian Creek Twp
“We test all of our machines, we test our ballots,” Martin said. “This was a very unwelcome surprise to all of us on election morning. It, of course, was evident pretty much right away. We still don’t have a good explanation as to why it happened.”
Martin said she consulted with the ballot tabulator vendor and the Secretary of State’s office. The legal solution was to sequester the ballots that the tabulator couldn’t read in an emergency bin, have two election officials seal ballots and a bipartisan team travel with the sealed ballots to the Board of Supervisors office and count them there.
“Voted ballots are sealed and then only opened if necessary,” Martin said. “That’s what I’m asking for permission today, for those 13 precincts. Whether we actually need to access those is what we’re trying to figure out right now, I would like to schedule for 10 a.m. tomorrow the administrative recount.”
Martin said she plans to check the voters against the ballots and the results. The results “look normal,” and she said nothing popped out at first glance.
“I would like to, for peace of mind, reconcile that,” Martin said. “This would give me the opportunity to count them again.”
The machines at the Board of Supervisors office could read the ballots, but the machines at polling places could not read some. No Ames precincts had any issues.
To see the updated results, view the Secretary of State’s website.
