City of Jolley responds to Secretary of State’s statement on ‘filing errors’
City Clerk says lack of signatures, work schedule caused missed deadline
By Cassandra Kyser
In mid-September, there were two important deadlines for the upcoming City-School Election.
First, candidates had until 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18 to hand in their nomination petitions to their respective city clerk or school board secretary.
Then, city clerks and school board secretaries had to deliver those petitions to their county auditors’ offices by 12 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 19.
The Secretary of State’s Office has identified nine jurisdictions that made what it is calling “errors” in that submission process, including Jolley in Calhoun County.
Kerry Scheidegger is Jolley’s city clerk, and was the party responsible for delivering the city’s candidate petitions to the Calhoun County Auditor’s Office by the Friday, Sept. 19 deadline.
In a phone interview, Scheidegger shared his side of the story. He confirmed that he did receive four candidate petitions: one for mayor and three for city council.
He said three of those petitions — one for mayor and two for city council — weren’t filed with the County Auditor’s Office because they lacked the required number of signatures.
State law requires candidates running for city office to collect a minimum number of signatures based on that municipality’s population. Candidates in a city with a population of 2,499 or less must collect at least 10 signatures.
Ten signatures can present a logistical problem for some of Iowa’s least populated municipalities like Jolley, which, according to the 2020 U.S. Census has 28 residents.
According to Scheidegger, Jolley’s “population is dwindling fast” due to recent deaths and a resident moving to a long-term care facility.
“The town’s population is getting so low, to require the candidates to have 10 signatures, there ought to be a different clause for communities to only need five signatures or six signatures. With a declining population, it’s hard to get signatures for small communities,” said Scheidegger.
Scheidegger said he wasn’t able to deliver the fourth candidate petition — for a city council candidate — because he was working. In addition to being Jolley’s city clerk, Scheidegger says he is a postal carrier and also farms.
“Big towns have full-time employees that take care of everything,” he said, adding, “These small towns have to do just as much red tape as your bigger cities — your Des Moines, your Ames, your Waterloo.”
Scheidegger declined to name who the four candidates are, stating he wasn’t sure if he legally could.
In a separate interview, Jolley’s long-time mayor, Jim Johnson, confirmed that he is running for office again. Without a filed candidate petition, he will have to run as a write-in candidate. “As I understand it, I’d break the Guinness Book of Records if I was mayor for two more years, so that’s why I’m going to do it again,” Johnson said.
The Secretary of State’s Office addressed Jolley’s and other jurisdictions’ missed deadlines in a statement released on Sept. 25, 2025:
“We are disappointed to hear of the errors made by multiple school board secretaries and city clerks, considering we have provided these officials with extensive training resources and conducted detailed training sessions.
Following these training sessions, school board secretaries and city clerks received digital copies of the filing officer’s guide, school board secretary’s guide, and city clerk’s guide, as well as copies of the affidavit of candidacy and forms for nomination petitions. It’s worth noting that out of 941 Iowa cities, just six city clerks made this error, and out of 325 Iowa school districts, only three school board secretaries made the error. The resources provided to these cities and school districts clearly stated the deadlines as indicated by the Iowa Code.
Iowa Code 277.4 states that the secretary of the school board is to deliver all nomination petitions the day after the last day on which nomination petitions can be filed, no later than 12 p.m. noon. The same deadline applies to city clerks designated as filing officers per Iowa Code 376.4. The last day to receive nomination petitions for the 2025 City-School Election was 5 p.m. on Thursday, September 18, and thus the petitions were legally required to be delivered to the county auditor’s office by 12 p.m. on Friday, September 19.
These errors have impacted at least 34 candidates across at least seven counties, six cities, and three school districts. It is unfortunate that the affected candidates will be required to undergo write-in campaigns due to errors made by the filing officers, but it is the duty of our office, the county auditor’s office, and the filing officer to adhere to Iowa law.
Moving forward, the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office will work with Iowa’s 99 county auditors to continue to provide detailed training resources to Iowa’s designated filing officers and ensure they are compliant with Iowa’s legal requirements.”
The other jurisdictions identified as not meeting the filing deadline were Chickasaw County: New Hampton Community School District and Turkey Valley Community School District; Clinton County: City of Andover and City of Welton; Davis County: City of Pulaski; Fayette County: Oelwein Community School District; Ida County: City of Galva; and Iowa County: City of Williamsburg.
The Calhoun County Auditor’s Office declined to make a comment about the missed deadline, and referred inquiries to the Secretary of State’s Office.