Residents of Poweshiek County are set to head to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 4, to cast their ballots for City Council and Grinnell-Newburg School District Board races. Local election work can start as early as April, making tomorrow’s election a culmination of months of preparation, said Missy Eilander, Poweshiek County auditor and commissioner of elections.
Between April and May, Eilander said she and her office begin the process by contacting city clerks and school boards to obtain information about incumbents and whether anyone has been appointed in the interim. The office then asks them to fill out a planning worksheet. Later in the summer, the auditor’s office compiles a list of who has filed paperwork prior to the August deadline and begins preparing ballots to be cast throughout October and early November.
For each election, Eilander must hire poll workers to oversee the polls on the day of the election.
Currently, enough workers have been hired to run the Nov. 4 election, but Eilander said more workers are needed for the 2026 midterms, which receive a higher voter turnout on average than purely local elections.
Eilander said she is trying to find new people, since some workers have been working the polls since she started in the position almost ten years ago.
“Obviously they get older and older, and then they don’t want to work anymore … I need to replace those spots. It’d be nice to kind of get some newer, mid-aged or younger people in that would want to stay and continue to do it,” Eilander added.
Another issue, according to Eilander, is that staff must be balanced by party affiliation. “Maybe I want five in this precinct, and I already have three Republicans, so I really need Democrats,” she said. “And people that are saying they’ll work are Republicans, well, I can’t use them. I need the Democrats. I got to keep the party balance.”
Eilander said working at the polls is an important way to participate in the democratic process.
“You get a sense of the process and what goes into it,” she said. “Because you hear so much stuff on the media about voter fraud and everything, and this way, if you’re there, you know when they [ballots] come in, and you know the process and how we follow all the procedures and rules and everything.”
Efforts to prevent voter fraud are present each step of the way, said Eilander. These include ballots being locked in a vault prior to Election Day, contained in a secure bag with a seal during the day and audited after the election to ensure the machine counts are correct.
The numbers from the machine and the hand count always come out matching, according to Eilander.
“Everything’s checked here, sealed up, documented,” Eilander said. “When it gets to the polling location, it’s all verified.”
Up until March 2021, Eilander had the authority to call satellite voting locations before Election Day. Now, a petition with 100 signatures must be filed by an eligible voter to the Poweshiek auditor’s office for a satellite polling location to be arranged. The change comes after Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed S.F. 413, a bill that made changes to the conduct of elections, including the process of absentee ballots and voter list maintenance activities.
“I would always hold one the Saturday before the election, but I can’t do that anymore,” Eilander said about satellite voting locations. “It has to be a petition filed in my office.”
A satellite voting location for the current November election was held on Oct. 20 at Drake Community Library after a petition was submitted to Eilander.
Eilander said she performs election-related outreach through newspapers, social media, representatives from Grinnell College and KGRN radio.
“I’m trying to get as much information out by viable sources as I can,” she said, adding that she is open to other ideas for voter outreach.
Eilander said preparation for the June 2026 midterms is anticipated to begin in January, after the deadline to contest this election’s results has passed.
“After an election is completed, I mean, you’re kind of starting the process for the next election,” she said.
Polls open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 4. Grinnell is divided into 4 wards, which determine where a resident votes. Wards 1 and 2 vote at Elks Lodge, Ward 3 votes at Drake Library and Ward 4 votes at the 4H Building, County Fairgrounds.
