Wondering where your new polling site may be on Election Day? Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz says there’s now an “app” for that. “We’ve been working on this for the last six to eight months,” Schultz says. “Now it’s available on iPad, iPhone and Android.” Beyond finding your polling place, the new “app” helps Iowans register to vote, ask for an absentee ballot — and even track that absentee ballot once they’ve mailed it.  “You can check right on your phone to see if your absentee ballot’s been received by your (county) auditor,” Schultz says. Download the app, for free, in the Apple App Store or in the Google Play Market. “It’s a comprehensive app that is really a first of its kind, I think, in the country,” Schultz says.

He hopes to add new features for future elections, allowing people to follow real-time Election Night results via their smart phone or tablet. “More and more people are using tablets and smart phones. I mean, I don’t even use a computer much anymore. I use my tablet more than anything,” Schultz says. “I think a lot of people who use technology are going down this road and, obviously, those voters who don’t still have the general way of going to the auditor’s office and getting their absentee ballot request form and so forth, but this is a way in which we try and make it as easy and accessible as possible for voters here in Iowa.”

One of the apps lets Iowans report suspected voter fraud. Schultz, a Republican, reviewed Iowa D-O-T lists earlier this year and discovered almost 34-hundred people had registered to vote when they got their driver’s license or photo I.D., but were not eligible to vote. Schultz wants to check that list against a federal database, but the effort has been challenged in court. A lone Division of Criminal Investigation agent is combing through the list, however, and so far five people have been charged with voter fraud.

(Radio Iowa)

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have been very publicly voicing their support of the four Iowa Republicans who’re running for congress. On September 7th when Mitt Romney was speaking at a rally in Orange City, he pointed to Steve King — currently a congressman from northwest Iowa. “I’m looking here at Steve King,” Romney said. “This man needs to be your congressman again. I want him as my partner in Washington, D.C.” The Republican congressional candidate in northeast Iowa — introduced Paul Ryan at a rally October 1st in Dubuque. “How about Ben Lange, huh?” Ryan said immediately after getting the microphone. “We’ve got to send this guy to represent us.”

John Archer, the G-O-P congressional candidate in the southeast quadrant of the state, got a similar shout-out from Ryan at a rally in Burlington last Tuesday.”That guy’s going to be your next congressman,” Ryan said of Archer. “Make sure it happens, all right?” And when Mitt Romney rallies with Republicans on a farm near Van Meter Tuesday, Republican Congressman Tom Latham will be there. Nick Ryan ran former Iowa Congressman Jim Nussle’s campaigns in 2000, 2002 and 2004 and he says there’s “no question” the competitive presidential race has been a factor in this year’s Iowa congressional races. But Ryan sees a reverse benefit as well.

“When you have strong congressional candidates working with a strong presidential campaign, good things are able to happen,” Ryan says. Ryan says all four Republican congressional candidates — two incumbents and two challengers — have all amassed valuable lists of volunteers in each of the four districts.This past Saturday’s statewide get-out-the-vote effort by Republicans — to benefit all the G-O-P candidates on the November ballot — is a case in point. “I’ve seen numbers that compare 2008 volunteer activity — phone call activity and door-knocking activity — to 2012 and our voter contacts in 2012 far out-pace what they did in 2008,” Ryan says. ”

Regardless of how it’s working, it’s working very well.” Latham’s congressional campaign is renting office space in Urbandale to the Romney campaign, but James Carstensen, a spokesman for Latham, downplays the idea there’s a strong connection with the Romney camp. “As far as running campaigns together, we just don’t,” Carstensen says. Carstensen says Latham believes if he runs a “strong, independent” campaign, it will benefit Republicans up and down the ticket.

(O. Kay Henderson/Radio Iowa)

Health officials around the country are trying to track down patients who may have received a deadly dose of steroids used to treat back pain — but not here — as state epidemiologist Patricia Quinlisk says none of the material reached Iowa. “What the C-D-C is recommending at this time is to contact the people providers, health care, clinics who received one of those three lots and working with them contact all the patients who may have received one of the three lots. Since we never received any of the three lots we have not had to do that,” Quinlisk explains.

Dr. Quinlisk says the Massachusetts company has recalled not just the contaminated steroid, but every product on its shelves just to be safe. “There may be some of the things on that list that did make it to Iowa but its being recalled out of a total abundance of caution. It’s not even been something that’s been forced upon them, this pharmacy just doesn’t want to take any chances and is recalling everything,” she explains. At least seven people have died and dozens more are became ill from a rare form of meningitis linked to the steroids.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press