Mathis confirmed as state’s newest senator

CEDAR RAPIDS - Democrat Liz Mathis won 13,324 votes and Republican Cindy Golding had 10,322 in the hotly contested Senate District 18 race, according to the official canvass of votes on Thursday afternoon by the Linn County Board of Supervisors.

Mathis' support represents 55.97 percent of the total, with Golding's votes equal to 43.36 percent.

A third candidate, Jon Tack of the Constitution Party, won 151 votes, and there were nine write-ins, according to the vote totals approved by the supervisors.

The canvass reviewed votes and provisional ballots cast at the polls on Tuesday plus absentee ballots.

Tim Box, Linn County deputy elections commissioner, reported that the office received 89 late-arriving absentee ballots in the race. Thirty-seven were accepted, while the other 52 were rejected, mostly because they were postmarked beyond the deadline.

The supervisors did ask about one absentee ballot that was emailed to the Linn County office from a voter in the military. Only votes from service members in a zone of “imminent danger” can arrive via email, and this voter did not certify that he was in such an area, Box explained.

Joel Miller, the county's auditor and commissioner of elections, said the vote totals presented to the supervisors on Thursday for approval included an earlier administrative recount of ballots in Cedar Rapids Precinct 30 - Mount Zion Baptist Church is the voting place - after election officials discovered that several write-in ballots had been counted twice.