(Radio Iowa) — The top two Democratic leaders in the state legislature say they’re open to considering changes to when Iowa voters may cast “absentee” ballots, but both say they will resist wholesale changes. Janet Petersen of Des Moines is the Democratic leader in the state senate. “My concern is that the clean-up language doesn’t make it harder for people to have their votes counted,” she says.

The rules for counting absentee ballots are at the center of a disputed northeast Iowa legislative race. Absentee ballots are to be mailed the day BEFORE the election, but the Postal Service no longer guarantees mail gets a postmark showing when it was mailed. Bar codes on a batch of UNCOUNTED ballots show they were mailed by the deadline. Representative Todd Prichard of Charles City is the new leader of House Democrats. “All of these 29 disputed ballots were mailed by the information put on the envelope, so it would be nice, maybe, to clarify, but I think the law is pretty clear,” Prichard says.

Prichard and Petersen made their comments this weekend during an appearance on Iowa Public Television. A state senator has introduced a bill that would allow county auditors to determine when absentee ballots are mailed by “any means of tracking” offered by the U.S. Postal Service. The attorney representing the lawmaker who won the northeast Iowa House race by nine votes argues the 29 uncounted ballots do not have the legally required “intelligent bar code” that can only be tracked through a subscription service — and the Winneshiek County auditor did not pay for that subscription.