A bumpy ride for early Iowa voting

DES MOINES, Iowa, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Spoiled ballots and a controversial recorded phone message from Sen. Chuck Grassley marred the first few days of Iowa's early voting for the Nov. 2 election.

Grassley left pre-recorded messages on thousands of Republicans' phones Friday criticizing Iowa Secretary of State Chet Culver for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get absentee ballot request forms into the hands of every Iowan, the Des Moines Register reported. Grassley then urged listeners to use the form to request a ballot and vote Republican to prevent wasteful spending of taxpayer money.

A Des Moines Register survey last week indicated Democrats' requests outnumbered Republicans' by 3 to 1.

Meanwhile, the race for U.S. House District 5 was missing on about half of the 758 absentee ballots sent to voters in Plymouth County.

"They made a fairly gross, glaring error not proofreading the damn thing. They might want to bend over backwards to make things right," said David Rogers, a spokesman for Democrat Joyce Schulte, who is challenging Republican incumbent Rep. Steve King.

Voters can mark the incorrect ballots "spoiled" and return them for corrected versions; however, votes submitted on the incorrect ballots will be counted.