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Rita Hart Takes Lead in 2nd District Congressional Race After Jasper County Corrects Data Error
IOWA — Democrat Rita Hart has now taken the lead in the race for Congress in Iowa’s 2nd District after Jasper County election officials identified and corrected a data reporting error, according to both the County Auditor and Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate.
At the end of election night on Tuesday Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks was leading the race for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District by 282 votes over Democrat Rita Hart with all counties reporting. But on Friday morning Hart had surged to a 162 vote lead over Miller-Meeks.
The change in votes stems from data being incorrectly reported by the Auditor’s office for one precinct in Jasper County. Auditor Dennis Parrott says there were no issues at the precinct itself, but vote totals from the precinct were entered incorrectly into a spreadsheet. Parrot says as soon as the error was discovered he contacted Pate who then drive directly to Newton to help investigate.
Pate and Parrot say the error has now been fixed and the vote totals listed on the Secretary of State’s website that show Hart in the lead are correct. Jasper County officials plan to audit the precinct where the error occurred and to recount all votes countywide. That process could be completed as soon as this weekend.
Pate and Parrot say Iowans should feel secure that the final vote total will be correct. They say that this issue proves that the state’s election system works and that redundancies in that system are there to catch such errors.
Iowa allows any absentee ballot that is postmarked before election day to be counted if it is received within a week after the election. In 2020 that deadline would be Tuesday, November 9th.
The Associated Press has not declared a winner in the race.
