Wanted: More Iowa poll workers, scrutiny of voting info

DES MOINES — As Iowa Secretary of State, Paul Pate is the state’s top elections official and he and his staff are making preparations for November’s presidential election.

In addition to the usual logistical challenges of putting on an election, Pate and county auditors are dealing with added issues like a shortage of poll workers on Election Day, and misleading or outright false information being delivered to voters.

The Gazette interviewed Pate about those issues and what his office is doing to address them. The interview was conducted via email because Pate was out of the state for a conference, his office said. The following is edited only for brevity and clarity.

The general election is Nov. 5. The first day to request an absentee ballot from county auditors is Aug. 27. Early voting in Iowa starts Oct. 16.

Q: Your poll worker recruiting program recently received a national honor. What is the current state of the need for poll workers for the general election in Iowa? And what is your best pitch to recruiting Iowans to work at the polls on Election Day?

A: We were thrilled to be recognized nationally by the National Association of Secretaries of State for our poll worker recruitment initiative. … Part of this initiative includes our poll worker recruitment site, pollworker.iowa.gov. This website is dedicated solely to the identification and recruitment of poll workers. Since we launched in 2020, we’ve identified more than 21,000 Iowans who are interested in serving as poll workers.

Looming poll worker shortages have had effects on many states across the country. In Iowa, we’ve been able to meet our poll worker requirements, partly because of diligent efforts statewide to recruit and maintain poll workers, and partly because Iowans are extremely civically engaged and understand the importance of working elections.

We work very closely with local election officials and county auditors in all 99 counties to make sure that we have bipartisan teams of poll workers serving in every election. Poll workers play a critical role in keeping Iowa’s elections safe and secure. I like to call them my “secret weapon.” Iowans can rest assured we have their backs when they step into a polling place on Election Day and see trusted faces from their community working the polls. Poll workers are required to serve in the communities in which they live, so when voters visit their polling site, they see people they recognize from the grocery store, church, school pick up line, their book clubs. They see friends, neighbors, co-workers, family members.

For those who have questions about how our election is run — I encourage them to step up and serve as a poll worker. This is the best way to not only help us safeguard Iowa elections but to get a look at the hard work that goes into securing them.

This election, thousands of poll workers across more than 1,600 precincts will serve their communities as poll workers — checking in voters, checking voter ID, making sure voters receive the correct ballot, answering questions, and helping ensure elections run smoothly in each and every precinct.

Poll workers play a very important role in securing our elections. It’s a great way to serve your community, help ensure safe and secure elections for your neighbors, and get paid for your time. For more information or to sign up, visit pollworker.iowa.gov.

Q: You have talked about the need for voters to be aware of and avoid mis- and disinformation in elections and campaigns. How can voters spot mis- or disinformation? And how have technological advances like artificial intelligence made combating mis- and disinformation even more challenging?

A: There are ongoing threats of bad actors spreading misinformation — whether they use AI to do it or not. This underscores the importance of staying diligent and looking at information you see online with a critical eye.

We talk with the public regularly about the importance of turning to trusted sources of information, especially when it comes to election information. Iowans’ trusted sources for election information are the Iowa Secretary of State’s office and their local county auditor’s office. When I was president of the National Association of Secretaries of State in 2019, we launched a campaign called #TrustedInfo. This initiative reminds the public to turn to election officials as trusted sources for election information — directing the public to election official websites and social media pages to find trusted facts around elections.

Several years ago, with the rise of cyberattacks, secretaries of state across the country were navigating a new landscape and working to implement cybersecurity measures. Now the “new” threat is AI. My team is always monitoring for emerging technology and corresponding threats and doing our best to prepare for any situation. Election security requires a team — and in Iowa we’ve laid the groundwork to prepare the best team possible. Partnerships like those with county auditors, sheriffs departments, the State Department of Public Safety, Attorney General’s Office, Governor’s Office, State Department of Management Division of IT, State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Cyber Infrastructure Security Agency are all vital to securing our elections.

While there have long been efforts to sow distrust in elections and spread false information before AI entered this space, AI can make it easier for bad actors to spread mis-, dis-, and mal-information and use more advanced measures to do so.

I can share a few tips for Iowans looking to spot AI. In general, verify the source, check for errors, unnatural tone, or typos. In images or video, look for faces that seem airbrushed, unnatural body proportions, blurry spots, strange symbols aimed to mimic lettering, and lighting or shadows that seem off. In audio, listen for abnormal pauses, monotone speaking, or choppy sentences.

We also launched an educational video series designed to give Iowans a deeper look at how Iowa elections are run. These animated videos dive into topics like voter registration, absentee voting, voting on Election Day, and a citizen’s guide to voting. Iowans interested in learning more about how Iowa elections are run should visit votingprocess.iowa.gov to watch these videos.

If you’re ever questioning something you read, see, or hear, I cannot emphasize this enough, turn to a trusted source of information and verify the facts.

Q: What are your other top concerns regarding election security ahead of November? And how do you assure Iowans the election results here will be accurate and safe from tampering?

A: Election officials commonly say we prepare for the worst, hope for the best. It’s hard to predict what may happen once November rolls around. That’s why we meet regularly with county auditors and their staff to lay the groundwork of preparation long before November. In some ways, we’ve been preparing for this election for years. We work with local election teams in hosting tabletop exercises across the state. We coordinate with county auditors and their election teams — IT staff, sheriffs, auditor staff — to sit down together and work through potential threats and situations and come up with detailed plans to mitigate these risks and handle them in case they should come up. Scenarios include things like AI threats, misinformation, inclement weather, and tech issues.

In Iowa, we rely on a layered approach to election integrity. We have paper ballots. You can’t hack a paper ballot. Election equipment undergoes public pretesting for accuracy and to ensure it is operating in accordance with all applicable laws before every election. We implement numerous safeguards around physical and cybersecurity. Ballot tabulators are offline and not connected to the internet. Bipartisan teams of poll workers work the elections and undergo thorough training. After each election, one randomly chosen precinct in each of Iowa’s 99 counties goes through a postelection audit, in which a hand count is conducted. Since these postelection audits have been required by law, hand counts in all audits have matched the voting machine count, 100 percent in every county.

Q: State lawmakers this year took some steps you requested to address the state’s recount laws, but declined to address some issues raised during recent recounts, like inconsistencies in how recounts are conducted from county to county. How confident are you that, if there is a recount in Iowa this fall, it will be conducted efficiently and fairly?

A: I was very happy to see some legislation that improved recount procedures and am very thankful to the Iowa Legislature for their work in ensuring election integrity. New legislation passed this year requires counties to ensure the recounts are accurate and match. So, the recount board now provides detailed information on the recounted ballots — and if it doesn’t match, the board is required to meet a second time to rectify that. When the votes are totaled at the end of election, the recounts need to match, so Iowans are confident their vote was counted accurately and fairly.

There is more work to be done, and I look forward to continuing work with the Iowa Legislature to do that. In the meantime, there are numerous processes in place to ensure accurate recounts.