Iowa county will hold special election for auditor, a challenge to controversial interim

Warren County voters will head to the ballot box in August to decide who should serve as their auditor until 2024.

The county's Board of Supervisors on Tuesday morning approved a special election to be held Aug. 29. Its winner will take control of the auditor's office through the 2024 election, leading the county's election administration, real estate transfers, financial records and tax levies.

Democrats began gathering signatures for the election after the resignation of the longtime auditor, a Democrat, led the entirely Republican board to appoint as her replacement David Whipple, a Republican who had no prior government experience and had engaged with election conspiracy theories online.

They selected Whipple over Kim Sheets, a Democrat and the deputy auditor.

The Warren County Republican Party attempted to discredit Democrats' special election petition, submitting a challenge that argued hundreds of signatures were invalid. A panel of three county officials — including Whipple himself — shot down the challenge and allowed the election to proceed after a tense public hearing at the end of June.

"We're not going to get into signature games in elections in this county if I have anything to say about it," said Doug Eichholz, the Warren County attorney.

With a date set, both county parties will gear up for an election that's likely to garner outsized attention, as Democrats aim to restore the office to their control, likely nominating the deputy auditor Sheets, and Republicans rally around the interim appointee in Whipple.

Warren County auditor controversy: Former official's resignation, ties to conspiracy theories & demands for an election rock metro county

How an interim county official helped determine the future of an election called against him

Days after the Warren County Democrats submitted over 3,400 signatures calling for a special election — 500 more than needed — the county Republicans filed a challenge aimed at scrapping the petition.

The GOP charged that over 1,000 signatures gathered by Democrats were, for one reason or another, invalid. More than 950 were "illegible," 216 had addresses that were "illegible, incomplete" or outside of Warren County, and 201 had incorrect dates, according to a copy of the petition reviewed by the Des Moines Register.

With those allegedly invalid signatures taken into account, the petition would fall short of the threshold to trigger an election.

"It is not the role of those reviewing the petition to read the minds of the petition organizers to determine what those organizers really meant, or to alter anything written on the petition," the Republican challengers wrote.

Under Iowa law, a challenge like the one filed by the Warren County Republicans is considered by a panel of three officials: the county attorney, county treasurer and county auditor. That meant Whipple, who was almost certain to be a candidate in the special election, would sit on the panel determining whether that election would be held.

Republicans, in their challenge, asked that Whipple and Julie Daugherty, the county treasurer who had supported Sheets' appointment as interim auditor, recuse themselves from the panel. They suggested their seats be filled by the county sheriff and recorder.

Whipple, in an interview days before the hearing, was uncertain what he would do. He had spoken with the Iowa Secretary of State's office, who had told him there were "no clear rulings" in the state about the proper way to proceed.

He was instructed to "rely heavily" upon the advice of the county attorney.

"If I … recuse myself, what that does is make it to where I'm not standing up for the oath of office that I took," Whipple told the Register. "If I … don't recuse myself and I fulfill that oath that I've been sworn in to do, then it's going to make other people, like even the Republican Party, upset with me."

In the end, both Whipple and Daugherty remained on the panel.

Unanimous vote to hold an election after an intense hearing

After Whipple took his seat and the panel began its hearing on June 30, he took a moment to explain to the packed room — more than 50 attendees and multiple reporters — why he had chosen to participate.

"I'm going to be the auditor of this county, the commissioner of elections," Whipple said. "I need you to be able to trust that I will make decisions with integrity."

That comment spurred a few scoffs from the crowd. One attendee shouted "no conflict of interest at all!" in apparent sarcasm. Interruptions from the crowd would continue throughout — the same attendee shouted that Whipple, who had shared now-deleted Facebook posts about QAnon and 2020 election conspiracies, was an "election denier."

Shayla McCormally, an attorney representing the Democrats, and Steve Kirby, the chair of the county Republicans, both addressed the panel. Kirby faced no questions; McCormally, who called the GOP challenge "frivolous," had a lengthy exchange with Whipple.

But after both parties made their case, the three panelists voted unanimously to reject the Republican challenge and allow the election to proceed.

"I think people knew what they were signing, I really do," Whipple said in his closing remarks. "I don't think it was 1,000 (invalid signatures). To me, it's a nonissue. There's no rule of law against that."

Daugherty and Eichholz, the other two panelists, agreed; Eichholz said he was inclined to ignore grievances with individual signatures' legibility or details.

After the hearing, the chair of the Warren County Democrats told the Register he was "pleased" with the decision, calling it "good for democracy, good for Iowa and for the county." But he maintained that he would have like to have seen Whipple recuse himself from the process.

"I would have recused had it been me, because he was up there deciding whether he gets a paycheck for 18 months without having to win an election," Culbert said.

Kirby, the Republican chair, said "we wish we would have prevailed on this, but it's part of the process."

Both parties will now prepare for their county conventions, during which they will choose their nominee for the special election — almost certain to be Whipple and Sheets, the deputy auditor who was put on 60-day administrative leave days after Whipple took the role.

"I think a lot of people will be watching," Kirby said.

Galen Bacharier covers politics for the Register. Reach him at gbacharier@registermedia.com or (573) 219-7440, and follow him on Twitter @galenbacharier.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa county will hold election in a challenge to interim auditor