This is a second version of examples of missteps by Tom Slockett in his role as Johnson County Auditor is by no means exhaustive. It includes evidence and/or resources for evidence for example. The evidence is in italics after each example.
The information was compiled from multiple sources. The sources will not reveal their identities due to very real concerns of retaliation and harassment. We encourage all appropriate officials, the press, and the public to thoroughly investigate these claims. Specific names of those who should be interviewed as witnesses will be supplied as we see fit.
The information was compiled from multiple sources. The sources will not reveal their identities due to very real concerns of retaliation and harassment. We encourage all appropriate officials, the press, and the public to thoroughly investigate these claims. Specific names of those who should be interviewed as witnesses will be supplied as we see fit.
2004 presidential: 119 provisional ballots that should have been
counted were discovered after the canvass. Auditor had BOS conduct a second "canvass"
after the deadline, labeled a "report of ballot information" (probably
not legal). Even if it is, this second result is not included in official Secretary
of State records. So as far as the official record goes, those votes
didn't count. (The Auditor’s web site makes
no mention of this except buried in the minutes, and reports the extra-legal "report
of ballot information" as the official result.
Iowa law requires the canvass to be completed the first
Monday or Tuesday after an election. The 2004 election took place on November
2, 2004, and the first canvass on November 9, 2004. At the November 9th canvass,
65,373 votes were counted in the presidential race. On November 23rd, there was
a second "canvass" with the heading, "Report of Ballot
Information" where 65,492 votes were counted in the presidential race. The
Iowa Sec. of State reports the initial canvass total for Johnson County as
65,373.
The Election deputy walked out on a
work Saturday after an enraged outburst by Slockett six weeks before the
election and was not replaced. Staff went through
a then-record turnout presidential election
with no elections deputy.
Interview County HR Director.
No Elections Deputy (temp or permanent) on County payroll from
mid-September, 2004-April 2005.
Voters were mailed duplicate ballots because the mailing
labels were accidentally printed twice because Slockett was yelling at the person
printing them out. No question that some
people may have voted twice and others not at all.
Interview Elections staff on-duty plus two deputies.
The 2004 election went over budget by more than $100,000
in large part because Slockett was literally hiring temps off the street. Many often stood there for hours until someone
was able to get to them to give them something to do.
Link to
BOS approval of budget overage. See: “Dept.
33-Elections (Government Services to Residents) increases $143,480 for ytd
appropriation $621,419;”
Changes in precinct boundaries (16 annexed/Scott)
weren’t discovered until a few days before
the election. Voters were mailed new ballots to reflect the different legislative
districts, along with confusing instructions that led to replacing the “new” ballots
on several occasions because people mailed in the wrong ballot.
The wrong winner was reported for Soil and Water
Conservation Commission. This was due to Slockett preventing staff from testing
returns before election night. Tom had refused
to include over and under votes in the reporting
even though the Secretary of State's office told him he was required to. He caved at the last minute. Because Slockett
held up decisions, staff were still programming the election night
return boards two days before the election, when this should be done and tested
two weeks before, and programmers had to work all
day the Sunday before the election to fix this.
Interview
on-duty Elections staff.
Spring 2005: Slockett purchased touch screen voting
equipment that was made illegal in Iowa in 2007. (Staff had expressed
this concern and were ignored.) This required purchase of new disability accessible equipment
(the Automarks) in time for 2008 primary,
and required lots of retraining first on the touchscreens and then on the Automarks. The Automarks were looked at but
rejected in 2005. The touchscreens made election returns process more complex
because staff were combining two sets of data for
each precinct, which played a big role in
the 2007 city election foul-up.
2005 City election—North Liberty Mayoral Race: incorrectly
reported numbers of write-in votes led to a front-page headline of an incorrect
winner and a months-long recount and election challenge.
See Iowa City Press Citizen archives and press
reports similar to this. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=152x16198
The recount canvass was in violation of Iowa code
because the Board of Supervisors did not order that the recount be held. Tom was informed of
this, but didn't want the Board to know he’d forgotten to tell them they needed to
do this. So the official canvass is really
illegal.
Iowa
Code states:
50.48 General recount provisions.
1. The county board of canvassers shall order a recount of
the votes cast for a particular office or nomination in one or more specified
election precincts in that county if a written request therefor is made not
later than five o'clock p.m. on the third day following the county board's
canvass of the election in question. The request shall be filed with the
commissioner of that county, or with the commissioner responsible for
conducting the election if section 47.2, subsection 2 is applicable, and shall
be signed by either of the following…
This
was not ordered by the Board. There is
no mention of the recount in the BOS’s formal minutes until the results are
approved on December 15, 2005.
Interview witnesses that Slockett was told the Board needed to order the recount.
Also in the 2005 city election, the ballot for Shueyville
was incorrect. It listed four regular seats and one separate contest "to fill vacancy."
At the time all five seats were two-year terms
so there should not have been a separate “To
Fill Vacancy” race. This too could have led
to an election challenge, but luckily for Slockett only four total candidates ran,
all in the regular seats.
Also in 2005 he finally became convinced that pollworkers,
because the County pays them, had to have I-9 forms on file. (He reprimanded at least one employee for doing
this at one point before he became convinced.)
With about as many as 300 pollworkers working in a General Election, this
was a daunting assignment, and some pollworkers didn’t comply. Even though he was advised otherwise, Slockett
put them on the job anyway. He then violated
NLRB law by notifying them that they could not have their paycheck until they came
in and filed the form.
2006 primary - ballots were not available on first
day for early voting; voters were turned away. This was also around this time Slockett
began refusing to release satellite schedules until after the petition deadline.
The public had to unnecessarily petition for UIHC because he became confused and
couldn’t tell staff where he wanted satellite sites before the deadline.
Interview Elections staff, acting Elections deputy, and
voters who weren’t able to vote.
2006-General Early votes were not properly counted
and were copying over making the final election result unavailable until 12:30 am.
Interview
Elections staff. Interview press for receipt
time of FAX of Final Preliminary Results
2006-Slockett resented the Secretary of State requiring
all Counties in Iowa to use a new central voter registration database called I-Voters,
even though a statewide system was required by a 2002 federal law. He preferred to use his in-house system, very
obsolete, called VoteFox. For 9.5 months
he required staff to enter and maintain voter records on both systems. (The dual entry era lasted through two county-wide
elections - (primary and school) - and two smaller special elections.) This required hundreds, if not thousands of hours
of unnecessary work and payroll.
Johnson County was the last county in state to use
the state voter system. All counties were required to switch to the new system by the end of 2005,
but Slockett ordered staff to use the old system
as the "official" data through October 2006. It was a full-time job for one worker just to
reconcile the two databases. None of the
staff who had to enter the data in the new system were taken to the State trainings
on the system--even though other counties took all their elections staff. Slockett took himself and a temporary elections
deputy, who soon after left the post and was unavailable for help with this. One of the workers who wasn’t allowed to go to
the training was given the assignment to train others who’d not gone on the new
system. When that worker explained she didn’t
know the new system because she’d not had training, she was handed a manual and
told to “figure it out.”
Once Slockett finally agreed to switch over to the
state database, in October 2006, he ordered staff to do so immediately. There was
never a final data reconciliation between the new and old systems.
Interview
on-duty Elections staff, election temps, Temporary Elections deputy, Elections
deputy, and Chief Deputy.
2007—The first 21 bar vote, first reported losing,
then winning. This was in part due to Slockett badgering
staff to go faster when he thought it was taking too long to convert a text
file to excel. Less than four weeks before the election, he ordered a new
method for conversion, ignoring staff concerns, in an effort to speed up the
process by less than a minute. With inadequate time to test, the process
failed.
Interview
on-duty Elections staff including Election technicians and other assisting.
See news story below.
http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=7326
See news story below.
http://www.votersunite.org/article.asp?id=7326
Multiple elections until 2010 special. Satellite sites at Coralville City Hall
and North Liberty Rec Center were insufficiently
(illegally) staffed. Multiple deputies over the years had doubts about Slockett's
policy of using one city front desk staffer to work these sites with other staff
"available if needed," but were afraid to give Slockett any answer than
the one he wanted. When local Republicans finally complained during the 2010 special
election, the state elections director (ironically, one of Slockett's former election
deputies) informed him that the sites required three staff with party balance fully
dedicated to election tasks. It is
unlikely Slockett did not realize he was in violation given that has frequently
said that all voting sites require this balance.
Interview
on-duty Elections staff, Elections deputies, and State Elections director.
Stay tuned for Part Three....
