County auditors across Iowa could argue that most of their work for administering elections is performed leading up to Election Day, and this includes implementing new laws set by the Iowa Legislature.

A law was passed this year that requires voters to show their identification when voting via absentee ballot at an auditor’s office. Guthrie County Auditor Dani Fink explains how that process will look come this fall, “What we did again in the primary was we had the entirely same setup that we do at the polling places. So when you go to your precinct you show your ID and scan it and it pulls you up through the system. We’re going to do the same exact thing this time, so it’s just going to be automatic so it’s not going to really make anything any different versus if you were going to the polling place. It’s going to be the same process as far as absentee voting in person.”

Voters can cast an absentee ballot as soon as October 5th either at the Guthrie County Auditor’s Office or through a mailed absentee ballot. The legislature also added a requirement this year that if a voter provides incomplete or incorrect information when requesting a mailed absentee ballot, the county auditor’s office is required to contact the voter first by phone and email and then by physical mail, rather than using an existing database to fill in the blanks. Since the office began accepting absentee ballot requests on July 6th, Fink says they’ve received near 900 requests.