Estherville Council Reconsidering Runoff Provision In City Charter
Estherville Council Reconsidering Runoff Provision In City Charter
February 08, 2022Steve Schwaller
(Estherville)– The Estherville City Council is looking into the possibility of no longer being a so-called run-off city. Council members Monday evening heard from Emmet County Auditor Amy Sathoff. She said there have been five runoff elections in Estherville during her tenure as auditor. And she says the costs are adding up…
“The city of Estherville has had five run-off elections since I have been in the Auditor’s Office, from when I worked there also, and it’s cost the city approximately $20,000. This time we tried to save the city of Estherville quite a bit of money by having all voters vote at Trinity Lutheran. If we would have had to have five precincts open, then we would have had to have 15 precinct workers and we dropped that down to seven.”
Sathoff adds some new election laws passed by the Iowa Legislature are also adding to the cost…
“Some additional new costs that are coming into play for cities are polls are required to be open 7:00 am to 8:00 pm every single election. We used to be able to start at noon and go until 8:00 pm on run-off or a special election. We can no longer do that. We also have the cost associated with the post election audit. Every election now will be having a post election audit to confirm the results of the election night, election day or absentee precincts.”
The council took no action on the matter Monday evening, but several members did express an interest in looking further into the possibility of transitioning to what’s known as a “chapter 45” city, which would do away with the run-off requirement.
