UPDATE: Vote recount has begun in Iowa House District 55

Posted: Mon, Nov 26, 2018 4:53 PM

(Left ro right): Recount Board members Jim Beeghly, Craig Cutting and Jim Burns

A three-person board has begun recounting the ballots cast in November 6th's Iowa House District 55 election in Winneshiek County.

Three people are serving on the Winneshiek County recount board:

--James Beeghly (appointed by Democratic Party candidate Kayla Koether)
--James Burns (appointed by Republican Party candidate Michael Bergan)
--Craig Cutting (mutually chosen by Beeghly and Burns)

The three have chosen to visually exam all ballots cast in Winneshiek county for the November 6th. If they don't see any problems with a ballot, it will be put in a pile to be scanned and counted by voting machines. Any ballots for which there is a question will be set aside in a separate stack. Winneshiek county Auditor Ben Steines says there might be 100 or so ballots on which the recount board will have to determine the intention of the voter.

The recount will be open to the public. The Auditor's Office expects the recount to take approximately two days. At this point, Bergan leads Koether by seven votes out of nearly 14,000 votes cast.

A stack of ballots waiting to be reviewed