Iowa’s elected officials officially confirmed the results of the 2024 election on monday. Republicans won big in all races.
A total of 1.67 million iowans voted, with a voter turnout of 74.2%. This is slightly lower than the record turnout in 2020, when 1.7 million people voted (75.8%).
“I want to thank iowans for participating and making their voices heard,” said iowa secretary of state paul pate. “Voting is important, and it’s great to see so many people getting involved.”
The state’s board of canvassers met on monday morning to approve the election totals. This board includes pate, governor kim reynolds, treasurer roby smith, secretary of agriculture mike naig, and auditor rob sand.
This certification is the final step for all races except the presidential race. Local officials had already certified county results earlier. In the presidential race, iowa’s six electors will cast their votes for president-elect donald trump and vice president-elect jd vance on december 17. Congress will confirm the results on january 6.
Republicans led in early voting
Iowans cast 681,899 early votes, making up 40.7% of the total votes. This is fewer than in 2020, when early voting was encouraged during the covid-19 pandemic. However, this year, republican leaders encouraged early voting, which led to more republicans voting early than in previous years.
A total of 268,629 republicans voted early, compared to 257,634 democrats.
Pate plans to address voter citizenship checks
Secretary of state paul pate is planning to introduce a bill next year to help election officials better verify the citizenship of voters. He caused controversy just before the election when he told officials to challenge the votes of over 2,000 people on the state’s voter rolls who had once said they were not citizens.
A federal judge allowed these challenges to continue. A review showed that most of those who were questioned proved they were citizens and voted, while 74 people’s absentee ballots were rejected because they didn’t provide proof of citizenship.
Pate wants to change the law to allow officials to more easily check citizenship using other state or federal data.
Recount process improved
Iowa had a recount in a close congressional race this year, but the process went smoother than in 2020. U.S. Representative mariannette miller-meeks won her race in southeast iowa’s 1st congressional district by 798 votes after the recount. In 2020, she won by only six votes after a recount.
Pate said some changes made this year helped improve the recount process, like better training for auditors. He also said his office gave guidance to avoid mixing manual and machine recounts, which had caused problems in past recounts.