Some Iowa voters still cast their ballots on paper this past election, butSecretary of State Chet Culver says Iowa’s election system, overall, ispretty modern. Culver says Iowa has “pretty good” voting equipment whencompared to the rest of the country, and ranks in the top third of thestates in terms of the machinery and equipment used on election day. Culversays under federal law, the 121 Iowa precincts using old-fashioned levermachines can’t use them in the 2004 Election. Culver says the state has toget rid of “central count” voting systems. Those systems are located atcounty courthouses, and in an average election about a MILLION ballots aretrucked to courthouses and run through “central count” machines there to betabulated. Culver says those machines have a much higher error rate becauseif there’s a problem with the ballot, it has to be thrown out. In precinctswith machines that count ballots there, the machines kick out mismarkedballots so the voter can fix the problem.
