Auditors and the Rate of Paperless Voting
It must make a difference who the auditor is when a county faces optional paperless voting. The rate at which voters used the paperless machines when perfectly good paper ballots were at hand varied ENORMOUSLY from one county to another in the June primary.
In the average county with both paper ballots and paperless touchscreen terminals about 27% of the voters were suckered into using the less desirable paperless method, according to a survey by Iowans for Voting Integrity.
In Scott County, where Karen Fitzsimmons is auditor, only 1.7% of the votes were cast on touchscreens. Fitzsimmons wins the prize for keeping this technology in its place.
On the other hand, in Emmet county,where Beverly Juhl is auditor, 75% of the voters used the touchscreen. That’s the highest rate in the state.
How can this be? Maybe you think the big urban eastern Iowa county (Scott) just has a different culture from the small rural northwest Iowa county (Emmet). Forget that explanation: right next door to Emmet county the voters of Dickinson county used the touchscreen only 5% of the time. I’m pretty sure the cultures of these neighboring counties are similar.
In general the less populated counties saw a higher percentage of the vote go paperless. In bigger counties a voter may have to wait in line to use the only touchscreen. In deserted precincts like Laurens, the touchscreens had the appeal of a new toy. Still, some rural counties–like Mills and Decatur–kept the touchscreen totals to 5% or 6%. I’m guessing that has something to do with their auditors, Carol Robertson and William Greenwood.
Actually I tried to find out what auditor Juhl and her neighboring auditor Nancy Reiman of Dickinson county had to say about the big difference between their two counties. Neither responded to email inquiries.