HD-37 Renee Schulte — the race is not over

One of the bright spots on election night was Renee Schulte defeating Democratic incumbent Art Staed in HD-37 in Linn County. Renee is an awesome young lady and a great candidate. She worked hard in her race, she articulated the issues and she will be a great asset in Des Moines.

One election night the counts came in showing Renee winning by 47 votes. My celebration that night was tempered by the knowledge that while absentee ballots must be postmarked by election day — they will be counted if received by November 10th. Further, that evening we did not know how many provisional ballots had been received. Those ballots would not be counted unless there were enough to make a difference in the race.

In today's Cedar Rapids Gazette, the auditor's office came out with the numbers. The Gazette reports:

Some 30 new absentee ballots in the District 37 race arrived at the Linn County Auditor’s Office Wednesday and Thursday. Added to 54 provisional ballots and 48 absentee ballots that were rejected by the absentee board, the number of votes that could still be counted in the race was 132 on Thursday.

Absentee ballots are rejected for problems with the affidavits that voters are supposed to mail with the ballots. The voters are contacted to try to resolve the problems, Auditor Joel Miller said.

The final results won't be final until next Wednesday and the official canvass of the vote — stay tuned.

Comments

[Tibby]

Great news! It's now safe to call Renee "Representative Schulte!" Spent the day at Westdale in the "cheering section" as Joel Miller convened a session to count the absentee votes and then sort through the provisional ballots as well. Kudos to Jeff Elgin for spending the day as our official observer and to Jim Conklin for acting as the ever present thorn in Joels hind side and then to Kathy Farrend and Lori Hamilton for shaking up the room inside, not giving a single inch to those who would have "simplified" the process and possibly flipped the election. Kathy made the auditors staff physcially find and read the Iowa code pertaining to each type of provisional ballot they were about to review.
Bob Rush was called in as the "D" observer and he couldn't make the numbers change....too bad!
There are still some outstanding ballots that could arrive by Monday at noon, but we have already examined the universe and it appears we have this race by the thinnest of thin margins!
Congratulations Renee, you've earned this!!

[Tibby]

For those with inquiring minds...the margin after today was Art Staed with 8610 and Renee Schulte with 8624 votes. There is a total of 16 absentee ballots that are either from the east or west coast or overseas, so considering there was a grand total of 5 absentee ballots received at the auditors office today for the entire county....I think Renee can finally get a good nights sleep!