It appears Iowa voters have decided to change Iowa’s constitution. Since it’s drafting, the state’s constitution has barred “idiots” and the “insane” from voting.

About a decade ago, State Representative Pam Jochum of Dubuque started an effort to change the wording that keeps mentally incompetent Iowans from voting. ”I’m sure the words used in the constitution 150 years reflected the knowledge at the time by referring to people with mental retardation as idiots and people with mental illness as insane people, but we know much different that than today,” Jochum says, “so basically all we’re doing is modernizing the language to reflect knowledge we have today of people with those types of disabilities and just giving them the dignity and the respect that they deserve.”

Jochum’s daughter, Sarah, has a mental disability and Jochum is “heartened” by today’s vote. ”I think it reflects our society respects people with disabilities and we do that with the words we use,” Jochum says. “Words are powerful and they can raise us up or they can tear us down and the words we are changing in our constitution…indicates that Iowans are saying people with a disability are part of our family and they ought to be recognized as such.”

Jochum’s daughter has a job at a vocational services center in Dubuque part of the year. When Jochum comes to Des Moines when the legislature meets from January through late spring, Sarah Jochum works at a similar facility in the Des Moines area.

The votes of 50 Grinnell College students are being challenged. 

Two Poweshiek County Republican leaders have formally challenged the absentee ballots cast by 50 Grinnell students. The Republicans say the students listed the main campus address and a post office box on their registration rather than the specific street address where they live.

Each Grinnell student has a post office box. The county auditor says students at Grinnell College have used their post office box number and the main campus address in past elections without any complaints.

The 50 contested ballots have been set aside and will be reviewed Thursday. The ballots could prove significant if a local legislative race in the Grinnell area is close.

The top election official in Linn County says Cedar Rapids-area flood victims apparently had few problems casting their votes today. Linn County Auditor Joel Miller estimates as many as 10,000 voters were affected by this year’s flooding.

Flood victims who have moved for good were to vote in the precinct where they’re living now. Others were given the option of voting in their old neighborhood if they intended to return. Miller says there didn’t seem to be too much confusion today.

"We’ve had a lot of Election Day registrations. I don’t know how many of those are necessarily from the floods," Miller says, "but it seems like everyone — the voters and the workers — have all been handling the issues just kind of matter-of-factly and going through the process."

Lindsey Vanecek went back to her old Cedar Rapids neighborhood to vote.  "It’s still sad," Vanecek says of the flood damage that’s still evident, "but it’s getting better."

Many flood victims may have voted early, as about 26 percent of registered voters in Linn County opted to vote early. "And that did what I hoped it would which is take off the peaks at the polling places. I’m standing at a polling place right now. This one wasn’t affected by the floods, but it’s pretty slow actually and I’m kind of wondering where the five, six o’clock rush is," Miller told Radio Iowa during a telephone interview at 6:30 p.m. today.

Voter turnout is "steady" today in Iowa according to Secretary of State Michael Mauro. "I’ve heard of no major glitches or problems out there. It seems to me that the operation is working OK," Mauro says. "…If it goes the way it’s going now, we’re going to have a nice election here in Iowa."

Mauro has predicted as many as 80 percent of eligible voters will cast ballots in this year’s election, perhaps the highest voter turnout of any state in the country. "I think it will be, but I’m hearing reports out of Ohio…where they’re thinking 80 percent…Everybody’s saying the same thing. We think we have record turnouts coming this year," Mauro says, "but I have to believe if we get to 75, 80 percent we’ll be right there (at the top) in comparison to the rest of the country."

Mauro was among the first to vote at his home precinct in Des Moines this morning when the polls opened at seven o’clock. Since then, he’s been talking with county auditors to gauge what’s happening around Iowa. "I’m hearing that turnout is steady," Mauro says. "There were some lines but not unmanageable lines early in the morning and since there’s been a consistent amount of voters in most of the polling places throughout the state."

About one-and-a-half million Iowans voted in the 2004 presidential election. "I think we’ll surpass that," Mauro says of this year’s turnout. "We’ve already had over 534,000 early voters, so I think with what we have at the polling places today — and adding in the early voters — we’ll beat our (turnout) number in 2004."

There are more than two million registered voters in Iowa today. A new state law allows Iowans to register to vote on Election Day. The first test of the law was during the Primary Election in June when only 900 Iowans registered to vote at the polls. Mauro doesn’t think many will register to vote today, but there will be some who’ve moved since the last election and need to change their voter registration to another precinct. "We’ll wait to see how that pans out," Mauro says. "I don’t think we’re going to see a big gain in new registrations. You’re going to see new registrations of people moving from one county to another."

Almost 534,000 absentee ballots were cast before today, a 16 percent increase in "early voting" compared to 2004. County election officials and poll workers have begun counting those ballots. "None of them could be counted prior to today," Mauro says. "so what they’re doing — just like the polling places in the counties — they have a precinct board there who’s taking the ballots out of the envelopes and and they’re running them through their voting equipment."

Speaking of equipment, the days of human beings reading the marks on paper ballots is over in Iowa. "All the counties are using the same type of equipment. They are optical scan equipment. At the end of the evening, they’ll run the results tape and then they’ll send that to the county auditor and then the county auditor….will either modem us at the secretary of state’s office or call us in the results," Mauro says. "I’m hoping it will be a quicker night for us."

The polls close at nine o’clock tonight, but Mauro says if you’re standing in line at nine, you will be allowed to vote. "If you’re in line prior to the nine p.m. closing — you know, right up to nine p.m. — you will definitely be allowed to vote in this election this evening," Mauro says.

There’s all sorts of information about voting on the secretary of state’s website — www.sos.state.ia.us.