County Auditor Grant Veeder retiring after 37 years in role

His employment with Black Hawk County ends Tuesday. Karen Showalter, the current elections manager, will be sworn in after the holiday.

He’s been working at the county for 44 years, starting as the deputy commissioner of elections in 1981. He ran for auditor in 1988 after Isabelle Frerichs retired. In his nine terms, he beat out opponents five times and ran uncontested four times. Veeder thinks part of his long tenure could be due to the low-profile position.

“People who follow government, especially county government, understand what auditors do, but most people don’t,” he said. “From observing around the state, if you don’t shoot yourself in the foot, you’re probably going to get reelected.”

He said this election cycle, however, many county auditor incumbents were defeated.

The auditor’s office has many duties including conducting elections, maintaining voter registration records, keeping records of all property ownership, determining tax rates and property taxes, keeping ledgers of the county’s revenues and expenditures, filing wage and withholding records for county employees, selling permits and taking meeting minutes and maintaining records for the Board of Supervisors.

Along with directly serving the county, Veeder was on the board of directors for the Iowa State Association of Counties and the National Association of Counties. Earlier this year, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate honored him with the National Association of Secretaries of State Medallion Award for his 36 years of service.

During Veeder’s last county supervisors meeting, Supervisor Chris Schwartz commended him.

“You’ve always been kind of a guiding, kind of star of service,” he said.

“It’s recognized, not only across this county, not only across the state, but across the country as one of the best county auditors in the nation, and you’re definitely going to be missed.”

Over the decades, Veeder said the most significant changes in the county have been the advances in technology. When starting, big polling booths with levers and curtains were still being used.

There was a brief period when the country switched to ballots with hole punches. That practice ended quickly after the infamous 2000 presidential election between former President George W. Bush and Al Gore, where Florida had to recount ballots due to “hanging chads,” or pieces of paper not fully punched through, which resulted in miscounts.

“I was driving out to Dunkerton for some reason, maybe we were running low on ballots … but it was Election Night and the national press was making predictions and they said that Florida had gone for Gore, that basically gave Gore the election,” Veeder said. “But by the time I got back from Dunkerton, it wasn’t true anymore.”

He has also seen a dramatic increase in the use of absentee ballots. He said when he started in the 1980s, having 1,000 absentee ballots was a “huge amount.” This past election, the county received 10,000 absentee ballots.

Misinformation and negative opinions regarding the process of national elections is another shift he has seen in voters.

“I wasn’t looking forward to doing another general election, especially in the climate that these national elections have been in lately,” he said on why he waited until 2024 to retire. “But on the other hand, I didn’t want to avoid it. I didn’t want to back away when all my brothers and sisters around the state were doing that important work. I wanted to pitch in and do my part.”

He said he hopes people try to get involved in local government to learn more about the process.

“I think that most people who do take advantage of that understand that a lot of what’s alleged about elections is just impossible to happen,” he said. “I do wish that people would try to look at these things more closely, rather than accepting what they hear on social media.”

Even with some negative aspects to the job, Veeder said he adds some levity to meetings by writing limericks, summing up the discussion. He jokes he’s often seen with a list of word suffixes in his wallet to try and come up with the best rhymes, saying he is “blessed with the instinct of meter.”

The love of words and writing led to Veeder earning a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Northern Iowa in 1974 and a master’s degree in history in 1979 – with the hope of teaching high schoolers.

Although his life took a different course, he will teach history during retirement. His favorite topic to learn and teach is Abraham Lincoln’s legal and political career. He is already working on a book about Lincoln’s connections to Iowa.

In 2025, Veeder will teach a month-long Lifelong University course on Lincoln’s legal career. The UNI program, which partners with area nursing homes, offers courses on specific topics.