Absentee Ballot Mess

WHO-TV

Des Moines, September 29th, 2004 - It's clearly a bad start for the absentee ballot process in Iowa.  Thousands of mistakes are in the mail.  Absentee ballots are supposed to be the key to a record voter turnout, but it looks like the master plan is coming up short.

Secretary of State Chet Culver is putting absentee voting on hold because names were left off the ballot.

In Plymouth County, ballots don't even list the candidates in the 5th Congressional District.  In Jasper county, a candidate who shouldn't be on the ballot for the District 36 race is, a nd in southeast Iowa, ballots in four counties don't include the race of an associate district judge.

Right now, 200,000 of these ballots are in the mail across Iowa.  The Secretary of State says if you receive a ballot with errors, you can request a correct version up until November 1st.

Aside from problems with the actual ballots, there are concerns absentee ballots aren't secure.  The Wall Street Journal raised the question this week.  As the Journal noted, Iowa has state-certified couriers.  These are people who pick up absentee ballots.  Some wonder if those couriers can be trusted to properly deliver ballots to county auditors.

For the first time this year, county auditors will pay the postage on absentee ballots, so it doesn't cost you anything to send them in.  The last day to get an absentee ballot in is November 1st, the day before the election.