The US House is being asked to examine election results from Iowa's Second Congressional District. Tuesday Democrat Rita Hart officially requested a recount for the race that currently looks like it was won by Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks by just six votes. Hart's legal counsel, Marc Elias, says they've identified 22 ballots from the 24 counties in southeast Iowa that were legally cast, but not counted.
"One thing we should all agree on, whether we're on one side of the aisle or the other, is that no voter should be dis-enfranchised due to election official error and certainly should not be further dis-enfranchised because Iowa law doesn't allow those ballots to be recounted."Iowa law says ballots not included in the original count will not be included in any recount.Elias says one absentee ballot was rejected because of where the voter signed their name. "This wasn't a circumstance in which they didn't sign, it wasn't a circumstance in which their signature didn't match, It was simply a circumstance in which the election official didn't like where they signed. No one's ballot should be rejected on that basis." And when these ballots are included, he says Hart will have won the race. Asking the US House to step in is based on a law approved in the late 1960's, that's been used since then, according to Elias, by both Republican and Democratic candidates.
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