Black Hawk County certifies Nov. 4 election results after staff handle phone outage and tout new electronic pull book

Black Hawk County elections staff briefed the Board of Supervisors on the Nov. 4 combined city and school elections, including an operational phone outage on election day and the successful use of a new electronic pull-book system.

Elections manager Josh Rosenau presented canvass materials and described how the county handled a Windstream fiber cut that disabled phones at 01:15 on election day. Staff set up a secondary Google phone line routed to cell phones so precinct workers and the public could reach the office. Rosenau and county staff credited that workaround and praised staff for maintaining operations during the outage.

Rosenau and other staff also said the recently approved electronic pull-book program was a major efficiency gain: what previously took about 40 hours to prepare for election day was completed in under 10 hours, and precinct workers found the new system easier to use. The county reported a perfect match on its post-election audit and moved to certify combined city and school election results for Nov. 4, 2025; supervisors voted to adopt the canvass.

The board discussed logistics for memory-stick delivery from precinct machines, the process for protected counts and public counters, and a planned second canvass for cross-jurisdictional (union school) items next week. No irregularities in vote counts were reported in the meeting; staff said public reporting and social-media updates helped communicate the situation during the outage.

The board approved the certification by roll call and thanked election staff for handling the operational challenges.