Relating to the conduct of elections, including provisions related to absentee ballots, recounts, and contested gubernatorial elections and impeachments, making penalties applicable, and including effective date and applicability provisions

1. This change to the signature requirements does not apply to primary elections held in 2022 unless the bill is enacted prior to March 23, 2022. The bill changes the deadline for a person nominated to fill a ballot vacancy to withdraw by filing a notice in the office of the appropriate county commissioner of elections from days before the date of the election to days before the date of the election. The bill allows the state commissioner of elections and a county commissioner of elections or political subdivision of the state to accept funding only from lawful appropriations of public funds from the government of the United States or the state of Iowa for the purposes of conducting an election, or from lawful appropriations of public funds from a political subdivision of the state for an election conducted in the political subdivision. The bill prohibits the state commissioner of elections and a county commissioner of elections or political subdivision from accepting or expending a grant, gift, or other source of funding from a private person, corporation, partnership, political party, nonparty political organization, committee, or other organization for the purpose of conducting an election. The prohibition does not apply to the contribution of a building for use as a polling place. The bill does not prohibit the state commissioner or a county commissioner or political subdivision from issuing and collecting fees as otherwise provided by law. By operation of law, a person who willfully violates this provision of the bill is guilty of election misconduct in the fourth degree, a simple misdemeanor. A simple misdemeanor is punishable by confinement for no more than days and a fine of at least $105 but not more than $855. The bill requires a notice for an election to include the date the election will be audited, the location of the audit, and the hours during which the election will be audited. The bill also changes the earliest date that notice of an election may be published from to days before the date of the election. The bill allows a county commissioner of elections to use an electronic election register in lieu of a paper register if the electronic election register is a product that has been certified for use in the state by the state commissioner of elections. The bill directs the state commissioner of elections to adopt rules regarding electronic election registers. The bill requires a precinct election official to publicly announce the results of a canvass only upon the request of a person at the precinct. Current law requires a precinct election official to always publicly announce the results of a canvass. The bill requires the state commissioner of elections, in cooperation with county commissioners of elections, to conduct an unofficial canvass of election results following the closing of polls for regular city, regular school, primary, and general elections. Current law requires an unofficial canvass only for general elections. If a county commissioner of elections determines that all precincts will not report results before the office is closed, the bill requires the county commissioner to provide a written explanation as to why. The bill removes the first Monday after an election as a possible date for canvassing an election. on the second day following the canvass of an election. The bill requires a recount request to include all precincts in a county instead of only specified counties. The bill also requires the request to include whether the candidate requests only a machine recount or a machine recount followed by a hand recount. If a candidate requests a hand recount in one county, the bill requires the candidate to request a hand recount in all counties in which the candidate requests a recount. The bill imposes a fine of $100 for each violation on a candidate who does not request a hand recount in all counties in which the candidate is required to do so. The state commissioner of elections shall then inform each other county to be recounted that a hand recount shall be conducted. The bill imposes similar requirements on recounts for public measures. The bill requires the county commissioner of elections to notify the state commissioner of elections by electronic mail when a recount is requested. If the apparent winning candidate in an election for which a recount has been requested cannot be contacted, the bill changes the deadline by which the county commissioner of elections must contact the chairperson of the political party or organization that nominated the apparent winner from four days after attempting to make contact to three days. The bill changes the composition of recount boards based on the population of the county. For a county of fewer than 15,000 people, the board shall consist of a designee of the candidate requesting the recount, a designee of the apparent winning candidate, and a person who is a precinct election official selected by the chief judge of the judicial district in which the canvass occurs. For a county with a population between 15,000 and 49,999, the board shall consist of a designee of the candidate requesting the recount, a designee of the apparent winning candidate, and three persons who are precinct election officials selected by the chief judge of the judicial district in which the canvass occurs. For a county with a population of 50,000 or greater, the board shall consist of two designees of the candidate requesting the recount, two designees of the apparent winning candidate, and three persons who are precinct election officials selected by the chief judge of the judicial district in which the canvass occurs. Members appointed by the chief judge for the recount of a partisan election shall not be comprised of more than one-third of persons who are not members of either of the two political parties whose candidates for president received the most or next-most votes at the last general election for a partisan election and not more than a simple majority of members appointed by a chief judge shall be from the same political party or organization. The bill makes a similar change for recounts requested in a primary election for an office for which no candidate has received the required percent to be nominated. Under current law, the recount board consists of one person chosen by the candidate requesting the recount, one person chosen by the candidate receiving the highest number of votes excluding the requestor, and a third person mutually agreeable to the board members designated by the candidates. The bill provides that the third person is instead a precinct election official selected by the chief judge of the judicial district in which the canvass occurs. on the sixth day following the canvass of the election. The commissioner shall then inform the board whether the candidate requested a hand recount. The board shall direct the commissioner to retabulate the ballots using the automatic tabulating equipment using the same program as was used to tabulate the votes on election day unless the program is believed or known to be flawed. The board shall recount only the ballots which were voted and counted for the office in question, including disputed ballots. After retabulating, the board shall compare the results to the abstract prepared pursuant to the county board’s canvass and note any discrepancies. If the candidate requested a hand recount, the bill requires the ballots to be separated into categories and tabulated. The board shall then compare the results of the tabulation to the results of the canvass and the automatic recount. If there are discrepancies, the results of the hand recount shall control. The bill then requires the board to reseal and preserve the ballots. At the conclusion of the recount, the bill requires the board to make and file with the county commissioner of elections a report of its findings, signed by a majority of the board. The bill requires a recount board to include in its written report following the conclusion of a recount a full tally and accounting of ballots reviewed by the board. The report must allow the county commissioner of elections to correct the canvass of votes in the manner required by law, if applicable. The board shall file its report by days after the canvass of an election for the offices of president and vice president, by days after the canvass of an election for a state office or a seat in the United States Congress, and by days after the canvass of any other election. The bill also requires the county board of elections to reconvene no later than days following a presidential election to correct any errors identified by the recount board. The bill requires a petition for a recount of an election for a public measure to be submitted not later than two days following the canvass of the votes for the measure rather than three days. The bill changes the makeup of the recount board for a public measure by removing a designee named by the commissioner and a person jointly selected by that person and a designee named in the petition requesting the recount and replacing them with two election officials selected by the chief judge of the judicial district where the canvass occurs. on the sixth day following the county board’s canvass of the election in question. Under current law, a county commissioner of elections may conduct an administrative recount if the commissioner suspects that voting equipment used in the election malfunctioned or that programming errors may have affected the outcome of the election, or if the precinct election officials report counting errors to the commissioner. The bill allows the county commissioner of elections to conduct an administrative audit if such circumstances exist. The bill allows political parties, defined in Code, to appoint observers to witness the audit. The bill requires an absentee ballot that is mailed to a voter to be enclosed in an unsealed affidavit envelope and with or in an unsealed return envelope, which shall then be enclosed in the delivery envelope. If the ballot cannot be folded so that all the voting ovals on the ballot will be hidden, the bill requires the commissioner to also send a secrecy envelope. The bill requires a registered voter to subscribe to an affidavit on an affidavit envelope by signing the envelope and writing the voter’s voter verification number. The bill also requires return envelopes to have printed on them the deadline to return the ballot and the manner to track the status of the ballot. The bill strikes a requirement that an affidavit envelope be considered to contain a defect if it appears to the county commissioner of elections that it was signed by a person other than the voter. The bill adds a requirement that an affidavit envelope be considered to contain a defect if the voter verification number on the envelope does not match the voter verification number on file for the voter. The bill requires the county commissioner of elections to prepare a separate absentee ballot style for each precinct in the county and program the voting system to produce reports by the resident precincts of the voters for each primary election. The bill repeals certain requirements regarding what materials a commissioner shall include with an absentee ballot and instead requires a commissioner to put the same serial number on the affidavit, return, and delivery envelopes. The bill requires all mailed absentee ballots to include an affidavit envelope. The bill also requires the absentee and special voters precinct board to reject an absentee ballot if the affidavit envelope does not include the voter’s voter verification number. The bill changes the makeup of the contest court for a contested gubernatorial election to include five members each from the house and the senate and the majority and minority leaders of each chamber. The bill requires the senate to organize as a court of impeachment as soon as practicable after an impeachment is presented. The bill changes the clerk of a court of contest for presidential electors and congresspersons from the secretary of state to the clerk of the supreme court. If the clerk of the supreme court is absent or unable to act, the secretary of state shall be the clerk of the court. For elections for state officers, the bill changes the clerk of a contest court to the clerk of the supreme court. If the clerk of the supreme court is absent or unable to act, the secretary of state shall be the clerk of the court. However, if the secretary of state is a party to the contest, the auditor of state shall be the clerk of the court. The bill updates an internal reference regarding withdrawals of candidates for school district elections. The bill takes effect upon enactment, except that sections amending Code chapter (absent voters) take effect on January 1, 2023.