Iowans Can Trust The Voting Process

By the time you've read this, it's possible you've already gone out to cast your votes. If you haven't, I strongly encourage you to find time to vote today. To find out where you can go to vote, you can visit Iowa Gov and follow the step-by-step process. When I was younger I was always told it is our duty as American citizens to get to the polls on election day.

The way I see it, if you don't vote, you aren't allowed to complain about the results if they don't turn out how you'd like them to. County officials in Iowa have spent a LOT of time making sure today's voting process is one you can trust.

The County Auditor for Jones County is Whitney Hein and she spoke to KCRG about the process of making sure every piece of equipment can be trusted to get the job done correctly. The machines that count ballots went through a bit of a practice run, about one month ago. She told KCRG,

My office has been working for months now to gear up for this election. We test them, we mark ballots and put them through the machine. We have a series of tests that we do. We have an answer key and each test must read out 100% accurately before we will verify that the machine is ready to go to the polls on Election Day.

Once the machines have passed through the test phase, there is another process they must go through before election day. According to KCRG, they are padlocked, and each lock is assigned a number from Hein's office. These padlocks stay on the machines until election day.

On election day, poll workers must first check that the padlocks haven't been tampered with, then verify all of the padlock numbers match up with everything. Hein told KCRG,

Everything’s under lock and then verified through multiple steps with multiple numbers. And that is how we make sure everything stays secure until the election.

It's not only these machines that are put through a process before they are deemed eligible for use on election day, but the ballots themselves are also locked and number sealed as well. According to KCRG, the ballots don't show up at polling locations until the day of the election, in this case, this morning. (11/8/2022)

Elections have been under scrutiny in the past and it can be a frustrating experience if you feel your vote was either counted incorrectly or maybe not even at all. Hein and her team have taken many steps to help Iowans feel secure with this process. Hein told KCRG "you can trust this process."

Get your voting pants on today and be sure to find the correct polling location near you and cast your vote.