The Creston Police Department reports a resident living in the 1100 block of S. Lincoln Street told authorities Monday, that sometime between 10-p.m. and Midnight, Sunday, someone entered his home and took several bottles of prescription pills and $380 in cash. The total loss was estimated at $580.

And, Monday morning, a resident of the 300 block of N. Walnut Street, in Creston, told police someone entered her vehicle while it was parked outside her home. Once inside the vehicle, someone took assorted loose change and cash. The loss was estimated at $175.

Both incidents remain under investigation.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports a man from Louisiana was arrested just before 11-p.m. Monday, following an investigation into a family dispute in Red Oak.  Red Oak Police arrested 35-year old Michael Kirk Josephson, of New Orleans, LA., on charges that include Simple Assault and Simple Domestic Assault. Josephson was being held in the Montgomery County Jail without bond, pending an appearance before a magistrate.

Secretary of State Paul Pate says computer systems for voter registrations in Iowa AND for registering new Iowa businesses are “running on fumes” and he’s seeking a cash infusion. “We are really depleting every single reserve fund we have,” Pate says. “That’s why I say we’re on the fumes level.”

Pate’s office works with county auditors to manage elections in Iowa. Federal “Help America Vote Act” money has been used up. Plus, Pate says his agency hasn’t gotten a state funding increase in eight years. “Elections, as it is right now, is running on fumes,” Pate says. “…When we run into ’18, that’s it. We will not be able to do several major components of elections without some additional funding.”

Seventy-one Iowa counties have voter registration information in a digital format. Pate and his staff say it would take about 600-thousand dollars to convert the paper records in the other 28 counties into “electronic poll books.” “It would help us with the integrity side because we would have the most current information in front of them, so that when a voter walks into a polling site, we would know if they were an eligible elector,” Pate says. “There would be no doubt in our mind. We’d be able to sit there and cross-reference it with all the lists we’ve worked so hard to put together.”

Pate says there’s been no upgrade to the computer software in his office for managing voter registration data since 2003, despite major changes in election law — like same-day voter registration. “We have kind of baling wire and duct tape here a little bit to try to make it fit,” Pate says.

Pate made the pitch for more money to Governor Terry Branstad Monday afternoon. Branstad says the state budget will be “tight,” but he’d like to find a way to get these updates done before the 2018 General Election. “That’s a way we could ensure the people of Iowa that we’re doing all we can to protect the integrity of the process, avoid fraudulent activities and people maybe voting twice or people that are ineligible voting or making sure that people that are eligible are not denied the opportunity to vote,” Branstad says.

In addition, Pate’s office took in paperwork to register 20-thousand new Iowa businesses this past year. Pate says the computer system that manages THOSE registrations is ancient. “I’m not exaggerating, but I’m telling you come May 31, our vendors will no longer be servicing us,” Pate says. “Our systems are far too old and the parts for our systems…have not really been touched since I was secretary of state 20 years ago and what we’re faced with is…we will have to go to eBay to get parts.”

Pate says he has no more options left and doesn’t have “a rabbit to pull out of a hat” to fix these digital dilemmas without a state budget boost.

(Radio Iowa)

More motorists were on the state’s roadways over the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend than possibly any time in history. Iowa State Patrol Sergeant Nate Ludwig  says there were several factors that led to congestion on Iowa’s roads, led by people headed home to see family. “Considering that gas prices are down, the weather we had, and the home football games going on in Ames and Iowa City, we expected this to be one of the busier travel holidays ever in Iowa history,” Ludwig said.

The patrol covered over a-hundred crashes and made more than two dozen OWI arrests. “There was a total of 118 crashes during the four-day period,” Ludwig said. “Twenty-nine were arrested for operating while intoxicated.”

Five people were killed in those crashes. There have now been 359 traffic fatalities in Iowa this year. That is an increase of 72 deaths over 2015, with a little over a month to go in 2016.

(Radio Iowa)