RNC sues Iowa county to gain access to voting machine records 

The Republican National Committee (RNC) sued an Iowa county elections office that refused to let the GOP take photos of voting machine seals to verify their security.

The lawsuit accuses Black Hawk County Auditor Karen Showalter of refusing to allow an RNC rep to take pictures of the tamper-evident seals used to protect and assign serial numbers to voting tabulation machines. The RNC claims Iowa law allows it to photograph those seals and share them with the public.  

The RNC is asking a court to order the county to release the seal records and allow its reps to make photocopies of them.

However, Showalter says a county resolution on election security procedures forbids this, as well as a section of Iowa law that lets government officials withhold from the public any records  “if disclosure could reasonably be expected to jeopardize such life or property.”

This lawsuit is part of the RNC’s broader plans to gain unfettered access to election infrastructure and scrutinize local election procedures. Raising doubts about voting machines could force some counties to take machines out of service, undermine trust in elections and intimidate election officials.

Last month, the RNC announced that it was sending election monitors to 17 states ahead of the midterms to challenge poll workers. In September, the RNC began a training program for its election observers in Wisconsin to raise flags about the state’s voting machines. 

The RNC’s Iowa lawsuit states that one of its representatives attended a logic-and-accuracy testing session, where witnesses can observe and attest that the county’s vote tabulation equipment is functioning correctly. During these sessions, tamper-evident seals are placed on the machines after they’re tested, and the count meters are returned to zero. Each seal contains the serial numbers for the machine it’s attached to. 

According to the RNC, those seals – and the data stored on them – are public records, which the complaint claims that Iowa’s Secretary of State Paul Pate (R) has affirmed. 

Pate’s office did not immediately respond to Democracy Docket’s questions to verify this. 

On Oct. 28, Pate released a public statement affirming the safety of the state’s election process, saying, “We have election security covered from every angle – whether it be cyber, physical security, or the poll workers on the frontlines, working directly with voters on Election Day.”