In this episode, hosts Brianna Lennon and Eric Fey speak with Jamie Fitzgerald. He’s served as the Auditor and Commissioner of Elections in Polk County, Iowa, since January 2007.
They spoke about a unique technology his office has been using since 2025 — where his poll workers transmit their unofficial tallies back to the central office via QR code on election night.
High Turnout, Wide Margins Credits:
Managing Editor: Rebecca Smith
Managing Producer: Aaron Hay
Associate Producer: Katie Quinn
Digital Producer: Mark Johnson
Transcription of the episode is as follows:
Jamie Fitzgerald: We have undertaken a new method, and it's using a QR code, and the QR code is a one-time use, and it's coming directly from our tabulators at the precinct level. And we've tested them — we've done this since February 2025, and there's a lot of tests that went into it. They actually have been certified in Iowa, this process, by an independent board. We think other states will do it, as well. But what it does is it makes [it] a lot easier to get the result quickly and accurately.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Introduction]
Eric Fey: All right, everybody. Welcome to another exciting episode of High Turnout Wide Margins. I'm Eric Fey, Director of Elections in St. Louis County, Missouri. I'm here with my co-host —
Brianna Lennon: Brianna Lennon. I'm the County Clerk in Boone County, Missouri.
Eric Fey: And on this episode, our guest is —
Jamie Fitzgerald: Jamie Fitzgerald from Polk County, Iowa.
Eric Fey: Jamie, thanks for being here. I think you are our first Iowa guest.
Brianna Lennon: Although. So, I remembered the reason why we were thinking about Iowa is because we came to your conference three years ago —
Eric Fey: Oh, that’s right!
Brianna Lennon: — and did the motivational keynote session to talk about the podcast. So, we have been to Iowa, but we have not had a guest from Iowa on the show.
Eric Fey: There you go. So, it's come full circle now. We have the guest. So, what we always like to start out with is asking our guests about their background and how they got into elections in the first place. So, tell us your origin story.
Jamie Fitzgerald: Sure. So, I actually grew up in a political family. My mom ran presidential campaigns during the caucus. My dad was a state legislator, ran for governor and Congress in Iowa —
Eric Fey: And the caucus is famous in Iowa.
Jamie Fitzgerald: — it was very famous for a long time. We were always first. Candidates kicked the tires, so I had the opportunity to see a lot of presidential candidates, starting with President Carter. We had a number of Kennedys at our house, so we grew up in a household that talked about elections, talked about issues, and, you know, anytime you were sitting down, there could be somebody from a different state, you know, kicking the tires to be president. So, growing up from that, I actually worked for one of the political parties, and, from there, I went to the Iowa Senate — focused on taxation. I did a lot with property taxes. A job opened up in Polk County. I was able to secure that position. It didn't necessarily do taxes, but my boss became Secretary of State, opened up the county auditor's office, and, 25 years later, I'm still here.
Eric Fey: So, you were a state legislator, or you worked for —
Jamie Fitzgerald: I was on the staff.
Eric Fey: You were on the staff, okay.
Brianna Lennon: What was — I like to ask people that work in politics that go into elections, what was the thing that surprised you when you started having to administer an election?
Jamie Fitzgerald: The hardest thing for me, go[ing] from the political side to the administrative side was absentee voting. When you're running campaigns, everything is, “Let's get as many votes banked as we can.” You're getting these things going, and you're wondering why they don't turn around in 24 hours. You come into the office now, you realize all the checks and balances that have to be done. So, that was really the hardest part for me. We have a jurisdiction that goes anywhere from about 75 to 100,000 absentee ballots. The process has got smoother over the last 20 years, but when we started, it was a lot of data entry, a lot of print the label individually, put the pencil in the envelope – so, it was a lot of hands-on, a lot of late nights. Right now, the process is a lot smoother with technology and the advancements, especially with these election companies. That makes life a lot simpler for us. So, the roundabout way — early voting was definitely the biggest jump for me.
Eric Fey: We were just talking to somebody earlier this morning from Ohio. They were talking about turnover in election officials. Now they're all, like, appointed by a board, but in Iowa, you all are elected county auditors. Is that right? Is that what you're called?
Jamie Fitzgerald: Right.
Eric Fey: Yeah, county auditors. And like Missouri, most counties have a county clerk like Brianna, who's elected. We've seen huge turnover. Is that something you all have experienced in Iowa?
Jamie Fitzgerald: We have, you know, every election you're going to have turnover just because retirements, just aging out, somebody else wants to take the opportunity. But running in partisan elections, in pretty much a nonpartisan role — we do a lot more than elections. We're also the people that do the taxes, we're the folks that pay all the county's bills. And a lot of smaller counties, they're the general services and HR department, as well. So, there's a lot to undertake, and when you start dealing with the pressures of elections, I'm very fortunate because, in my office, I have four CPAs that work for me. So, I really don't have to use that area. I have a tax person that the state calls for advice, so I really kind of have to do that. So, in elections — that's where I spend a lot of my focus because that's where people want to talk to you. It's been very rare that people say, "Hey, let's talk about your tax system. Let's talk about what you do.” The Rotary clubs are good for that, but that's about it.
Eric Fey: So, as an association in Iowa, and I know, as Brianna said, we've actually been to one of your meetings — have you all undertaken any initiatives or efforts or anything like that to try to address the challenges with the turnover you've seen?
Jamie Fitzgerald: We speak a lot to the legislature, you know, they have the same turnover we have. There's a lot of pressure now being an elected official — you have social media, you have cyberbullying sometimes, and you have folks that are on social media pro or con on everything you're doing. So, we have discussed it with them. There have been pushes over the years to make it [the position] nonpartisan appointed, but those really don't get very far.
We have 99 counties in Iowa. Three million residents. A little over two million voters. In my jurisdiction, we have — I'm in Polk County, Iowa. Des Moines is our biggest, the biggest city in Iowa — we have about 300,000 registered voters. So, it's a little bit to manage. In Iowa, we have, during redistricting, you can only have 3,500 people in a precinct — that's not voters, that's people — and so, we have a lot of precincts. I have 176 precincts. This morning I had breakfast with some folks in Colorado — they have 600,000 people, and they have eight precincts, and they're super precincts, which are great, but that's still a lot to manage.
Brianna Lennon: So, one of the things that you mentioned earlier was the advancements of technology and how that's made an impact on your office, and I think, by and large, improved things. Most of the offices that I have talked to that have added new technology have done it to try to increase their efficiencies for things and decrease their costs for things, and one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you is because we know that you're working on that for election night results and tabulation. Can you talk a little bit about, right now, the tabulation that is done at your polling places and how they get those results back to you and how that whole process works?
Jamie Fitzgerald: So, as everyone knows, elections are reactionary. A lot of times we react to either mis- or disinformation, and it's one of those things. Once the horse is out of the barn, it's out. So, we used modems for a number of years. In fact, my entire career we used phone modems. The legislature in Iowa felt they were unsafe, that they could be hacked into, and so, we had to start looking for different options.
In Iowa, the big counties are usually the first counties to transmit their results — by transmit their results, I meant by modeming. We would modem our results, unofficial results, into a system, take it, put it on the internet. And we live in a society that wants results immediately. Take Wi-Fi away from anyone under 25, and you're going to have a riot. And we're seeing that even with the media. They want to know results, results, results, and even if our results don't upload for five minutes, the phones aren't ringing asking, "What's going on? What's the problem?
So, along with our vendor Unison, we have undertaken a new method, and it's using a QR code, and the QR code is a one-time use, and it's coming directly from our tabulators at the precinct level. And we've tested them — we’ve done this since February 2025, but there's a lot of tests that went into it. They actually have been certified in Iowa, this process, by an independent board. So, this isn't a board of, you know, me and a couple of my friends. It's an independent board that got under the hood and kicked everything — led by the Secretary of State, and it's been certified in Iowa. We think other states will do it, as well, but what it does is it makes [it] a lot easier to get the result quickly and accurately. Now, again, these are unofficial results. When the results come in, they're loaded by a tablet. At the end of the night, the voter tape has all the results in it. In Iowa, in Polk County, we actually have all the write-ins, as well. So, we want to make sure we're not sorting, looking for ballots for write-ins —so, it's a very long tape, and these poll workers [have] worked 15 hours. So, we actually gave them a tablet to use, and it's just like using your phone for a QR code. Most of our poll workers still remember COVID and opening up their restaurant menus, so they were very familiar with it, and it's worked great for us. It's helped along with security and safety because it's only a one-time use. But, as you know, QR codes only have so much data; they only have so many things they can do. So, a second QR code will be presented, as well, and we tested that during the primary — where, in Iowa, you vote Democrat or Republican. If you're going to vote in the primary, you can change Election Day. You can come in one party, leave the other party. So, we wanted to make sure that we tested the system as hard as we could, and so, some of these sites had three different QR codes, and, in our system, we can see which QR codes have been uploaded. And, in Iowa, we're small enough that we still talk to our poll workers. So, before they leave and bring their equipment that we need at the end of the night and ballots, we actually talk to them to make sure that everything has been taken care of. Worst case scenario — they bring the tapes in, like they're required to do, and we can upload them right there using our own tablets.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Midbreak]
Brianna Lennon: So, it has always fascinated me that there are places that need results that quickly, like, I think everybody in Missouri has to wait for the judges to come back to the office, like, we are sitting and waiting, and hope that our polling places close efficiently and come back to our office. So, there's always a delay. How early do you post your results because of your ability to get them from the polls that way?
Jamie Fitzgerald: So, our election night reporting starts with our absentee, our early votes, the satellite voting in-person at the counter, and our mail — we put that up right away. So, at 8 o'clock, when the poll is closed, at 8:01, you're going to see some numbers, and that either gives candidates and parties hope, or it makes them very sad. And then we start, it starts — the process starts, and we do real-time uploads. Again, these are all unofficial results, and we'll check the tapes throughout the night as the machines come back. So, we're constantly checking, but you're always going to have one or two stragglers. We have rural areas that are low areas that don't have cell phones, don't have cell reception, so it's a little more difficult, and again, you're dealing with people that have worked 15 hours in a very stressful environment. But for us, during the last election, I think I was home by 9 o'clock. Yeah. So, about an hour.
Eric Fey: That's ridiculous. That's awesome for you, though. I love that for you. As the kids say, “I love that for you.” So, you implemented this in 2025, you’ve used it now for a handful of elections — it's working well?
Jamie Fitzgerald: We use it for every election. We think it's working well. You know, with any technology, there's always going to be things that you didn't think of. You can do the best planning in the world, and there's still going to come something that you didn't think of. For us, it was a split — I don't know if you're familiar with splits. They're different precincts laid on top of each other, different races. We had one race where there were zero voters and zero registered voters, and that caused a small hiccup. But it's things that we actually learned on the fly, and it, I mean, it caused no problems at all. But it was just one of those situations where you kept asking, “Why isn't the screen… we've uploaded…” and it was because there was a zero.
Eric Fey: So, it's working well for you. Have any other counties in Iowa tried to follow on from your lead on this?
Jamie Fitzgerald: We've had a lot of counties reach out to us. I know our vendors also had a number of places reach out to them. It's very exciting technology. You know, we do have a lot of counties that bring in their technology, I mean, bring in their ballots, bring in their tapes, and then upload them with the jump drives. We've never done it that way in Polk County, but you know, we refer to it as the Pony Express. But, you know, every once in a while, you do have, somebody has to bring it in, and, you know, with our media — it's like any other media — they want to know immediately, you know, you want Steve Kornacki writing on the board that “You're in.”
But we look at other states and their laws, and, you know, it's a little more difficult for them, especially in, like, California, where you can take ballots two days after or two weeks after. In Iowa, your ballot has to be received by 8 p.m. Your early vote has to be received by 8 p.m. election night. So, if it's not received by our office, it will not count unless it's an overseas, UOCAVA [The Uniformed And Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act], or a domestic violence survivor Safe at Home.
Eric Fey: So, just a quick follow-up on that. One thing I've seen, in my own case, and talking to folks from other states — when you're one of the largest counties in your state, like you are, and you implement a new program like this, some of the very smallest counties might say, "Oh, that's not for me. That's you know that big guy. That's Polk County. They're doing that fancy thing. I can't do that.” Have you seen any of that kind of reaction? And have you tried to reassure some of your colleagues that, “No, you can do this too?”
Jamie Fitzgerald: We've actually seen the reverse of that.
Eric Fey: Oh, really.
Jamie Fitzgerald: We've had the small counties, you know, our county — we have 99 counties in Iowa, so it's about, roughly the longest trip would be about a half hour in your county from the farthest polling site in, and it's still a half hour to get there — so, we've actually had smaller counties reach out to us. They have to work with the IT infrastructure to make sure everything's safe and secure, and that's been an impediment for a lot of them who use a third party and don't have a set IT department like Polk County does.
Brianna Lennon: So, I just have a question about the process, just so that I am clear — for uploading the results. When they're coming from the polling place, is that a completely different process than the process of uploading the jump drives into your actual software. So, is this that you have a website that you are putting this information into, and then you are checking that against the jump drives when they come in, so you kind of have parallel systems going on?
Jamie Fitzgerald: So, what we're using is there's an — unconnected to our internal system, where we get the information — we're getting text files from these QR codes, and we're taking that with a jump drive and uploading it into our system. So, we don't check the jump drives versus the QR codes. We're checking the actual tapes from the polling sites, and that does take a little while.
Brianna Lennon: So, how long is your certification process after, like, the unofficial results that come in? What's the next step in your process to certify the results?
Jamie Fitzgerald: So, we have a short process of provisional ballots — people that didn't bring their ID, people that maybe weren't registered. They have a couple days till after the election, we give them a receipt saying, "Here's what you're missing.” Much like every jurisdiction, if it's close, the parties will beat them down into coming in. If it's not close, they just seem to walk away. But our, usually about seven to 10 days after the election, it's always on a Tuesday, our board of supervisors will meet to canvass. They canvass the precincts. That's when they become official. Then from there, if it's a county or city — it's official immediately, if it's all within the county. if it's not, if it's in two counties — then it's another week after that when we get these different counties into ours. And, if it's a state, it actually takes a little while longer because they're doing the entire state, and, I think, that's usually at least a month or two after.
Brianna Lennon: Have you had instances where you've had close races where they have flipped from the unofficial to official?
Jamie Fitzgerald: No, we actually have precinct election audits, as well, in Iowa, where the Secretary of State picks a couple races after the election, and we hand count those ballots. He picks two races at random, two precincts at random. In Iowa, we can add more precincts, we can't take away. So, if there's a close race, like, we had one race that, for our, we had a special election, about a month ago, where a write-in candidate actually won, but the problem was it was tied. The write-in candidate and the candidate on the ballot had the exact same amount of votes. So, we did the — in Iowa, when it's tied, you do the pick out of the hat — and the write-in candidate actually won. They each had 37 votes, so it was a very small election. But that was one of those situations where, when you say, you know, “What's one vote?” Well, it's your city council person now, and the person with their name on the ballot was very upset with the process, but that's just the process in Iowa.
Brianna Lennon: As far as, when the people at the polling place are taking a picture of the QR code, like, what is involved in that process? What's the data that's in there? I think you mentioned it was a text file, but where is it going?
Jamie Fitzgerald: So, the data is all the unofficial results we have. It won't have the write-in names, but it'll have how many write-ins there were, and what that does is once you open the QR code — and think of it like you're opening websites, opening your menus. I know we had a lot of older folks that really didn't like opening menus at the bars and restaurants, but they're familiar with it — and it takes you to a set private website for us that only accepts data. It doesn't push data out. And it's not connected to our election network. We have to take it from this site and computer to our internal [system], and so, that's how we upload. It's a relatively flawless process, you know, unlike modems or unlike anything else calling — you know, the real fear for us is having people call and try to go through the ballot and give you numbers because we've also had a long day, they've had a long day, and that's how things get transposed. And so, this is a much more secure system. I know the Secretary of State's office in Iowa really pushed it, but the security demands are heavy. Our IT department — we have cybersecurity experts that work for Polk County, we have a number of IT professionals that see things we don't — developers, programmers. Along with our vendor, and they had a list of — the vendor had a list of things we needed to accomplish before we could even think about doing these QR codes. Which in Iowa, getting rid of the the modems — they're now illegal to have modems in Iowa, so we had to have something, and that's going to be the real problem for a lot of these, like, small to mid-sized [counties], to have that kind of IT presence, where they're going to be there election night, as well. I have cybersecurity experts that are watching our stuff. I know there's a huge situation room nationally, but we have one in Iowa, as well, where the Secretary of State, National Guard, and a lot of IT professionals are watching and monitoring everything. So, it takes a lot to get this process going, but now that we've got it going, we can't be happier and more proud to use it.
Brianna Lennon: I just think it's really fascinating that you might be one of the only states that has a demerit system
Eric Fey: Oh, yeah.
Laughter
Brianna Lennon: — that the Secretary of State's office can issue demerits to county auditors. Can you talk a little bit about that and what exactly it is? I mean, it's not used that often, I don't think.
Eric Fey: And how many you've accrued? We'd like to know that.
Brianna Lennon: I’ve certainly seen news articles that talk about demerits being issued to county auditors.
Jamie Fitzgerald: You're very kind, calling them demerits or saying you have to go stand in the corner. But actually, the Iowa law is set up where county auditors can be fined up to $10,000, and if they don't pay it, they can be removed from office. This is in reaction to the COVID years, where the Secretary of State advised counties not to do something — we had a number of counties that did. There were four of them. They got sued in federal court. It revolved around our absentee process.
In our absentee [process], you have to fill out a form. Some law changes have happened since then, but it's also given the Secretary of State the ability to make rules on the fly, to make judgments as opposed to going to our Administrative Rules Committee. There have been people that have received infractions. We call them “infractions.” Demerits sound much cooler, but we call them “technical infractions.” And there's always a process where the state will send you a, “Hey, this is an issue.” We received a question about somebody receiving the wrong ballot in Polk County. That's going to happen throughout time. You're dealing with humans, humans make errors. We were able to fix it quickly, and so, there was no infraction given. But they want to make sure that if there's problems out there, that they're monitoring these things. I think there's probably been maybe one or two infractions given, but I don't think there's been any fines. I have not received an infraction. I have a very good staff that's on top of things, and we want to make sure that every vote counts. We don't care who you vote for. We want to make sure that you're participating.
Eric Fey: You've been listening to High Turnout Wide Margins, a podcast that explores local elections administration. I'm your host, Eric Fey, alongside Brianna Lennon. A big thanks to KBIA and the Election Center for making this podcast possible. Our Managing Editor is Rebecca Smith. Managing Producer is Aaron Hay. Our Associate Producer is Katie Quinn, and our Digital Producer is Mark Johnson. This has been High Turnout Wide Margins. Thanks for listening.
