DAVENPORT, Iowa — Scott County is continuing its recount process for absentee ballots, following Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pete's call to county officials to conduct an administrative recount as soon as possible due to 470 absentee ballots not being counted in the official total.
“We are just having them go through and hand count them and put them in bundles, and we'll see where we end up at the end of the day,” Scott County Auditor Kerri Tompkins said.
Election officials said they ran the ballots through machines, but noticed 19 ballots were counted twice. Now they are re-doing their process with a hand count.
“We have them in groups of three, and each person is counting to 10. They're going to do a stack of 100," Tompkins explained. "Once they get to 100, then they'll be separated and keep going.”
Iowa House District 81 Democratic candidate Craig Cooper attended the count and said, "It's been like 10 days on a roller coaster, ups and downs” when describing his feelings after the election results.
"It's important that everybody's vote gets recorded,” Cooper continued. “It means a lot to both candidates and voters who place their faith in either my opponent or myself. They want to have their ballots counted."
"It is very important to us to count every ballot and to count it correctly. In accordance with the law, every legal ballot has been within our custody under lock, seal and camera during this process," Tompkins stated in an e-mail.
The county will continue with a machine recount on Friday, Nov. 18 at 8:30 a.m. at the Scott County Administrative Building.
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