DES MOINES — It’s a fake vote that will draw the kind of attention usually reserved for a real election, and Iowa Republican Party officials insist they’re taking aggressive steps to safeguard Saturday’s hotly contested Ames straw poll.

Republicans will be checking voters’ Iowa IDs and marking hands with the same indelible ink that stained the famous purple fingers of Iraqi voters. Only Iowa residents are allowed to vote in the poll.

State Auditor David Vaudt and auditors from 42 counties, including some Democrats, will be on hand to oversee the balloting and vote-counting, according to the GOP.

The party says its unofficial, nonbinding straw poll will accurately reflect attendees’ presidential preferences, at least on one hot day in August. Campaigns spending mountains of cash to win the poll and boost their hopes of winning the real Iowa caucuses are banking on it.

“It is very important, that’s why we’ve gone to all these extremes,” said Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa. “We’re spending thousands and thousands of dollars to put in all these levels of security.”

But questions are being raised, particularly by supporters of Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul, about the party’s plan to use optical-scan voting machines manufactured by Diebold Election Systems. Voting machines manufactured by the company have come under fire after California researchers found they might be vulnerable to computer hackers.

Although some of Paul’s most vocal supporters are taking to radio call-in shows and online blogs to cry fraud, his campaign is not sounding alarm bells.

No other campaigns have raised concerns about the voting process.

“We don’t have huge concerns,” said Jesse Benton, communications director for the Paul campaign.

He said Paul backers want a hand-count of paper ballots to confirm the machine count.

“We’re just asking for transparency to make sure there’s fairness in this whole voting process,” Benton said.

Laudner insisted that the Diebold machines being used at the straw poll to scan ballots are not the same machines sparking controversy in Florida, California and elsewhere. He said the devices will not be hooked to a network, so hacking would not be a threat to the straw poll.

He also said there will be transparency. Representatives of each candidate will be allowed to monitor voting and vote-counting. Counting will be overseen by auditors and not the party.

“This fear factor they’re trying to spread is ridiculous,” Laudner said.

Douglas Jones, a University of Iowa computer science professor and voting technology expert, discounted worries about straw-poll balloting.

“It seems to me like we shouldn’t be making a controversy, in this case, with technology used at the straw poll,” Jones said on WHO radio Tuesday.

Only Iowa residents with a $35 straw-poll ticket can vote, although most will get free tickets from campaigns trying to herd their supporters to the Iowa State University campus.

Voting opens at 10 a.m. Saturday at Hilton Coliseum, Stephens Auditorium and the Scheman Building and ends at 6 p.m. In between, voters will be served barbecue, live music and speeches by eight candidates attending the event.

Voters must show a valid Iowa’s driver’s license, photo ID, military ID or student ID from an Iowa college or university to vote.

To keep voters from casting another ballot, their ID and ticket will be scanned and their thumb will be dipped in indelible ink.

Votes will be cast by paper ballots slipped into the optical-scan machines. Auditors will handle moving the ballots to a tabulation room where they will be counted. Final straw-poll results are scheduled to be announced at 7 p.m.

Iowa Republicans see the event as a critical organizational test for candidates ahead of the caucuses. And despite its concerns, the Paul campaign has purchased a block of 800 tickets for its supporters, Benton said.

WHO WILL BE IN AMES?

'Iowa will go first, that is the bottom line'

DES MOINES — Gov. Chet Culver vowed Wednesday to keep Iowa’s presidential caucuses first in the nation even if South Carolina and New Hampshire move to shake up the primary calendar.

South Carolina GOP Chair Katon Dawson is expected to announce today that his state plans to move its Jan. 29 primary to an earlier date, potentially to Jan. 22 or Jan. 19. He’ll make the announcement in New Hampshire.

Such a move likely would force New Hampshire to move its Jan. 22 primary to Tuesday, Jan. 15, or an earlier date. Iowa’s precinct caucuses are scheduled for Jan. 14 and state law says they must be held eight days before any other state’s vote. 

As the dominos fall, Iowa Republicans and Democrats could be pushed to move the caucuses to Jan. 7 or perhaps even into December before the holidays.

Culver, a Democrat and Iowa’s former secretary of state, said he’s prepared to do whatever it takes to keep Iowa in the lead.

“Iowa will go first, that is the bottom line,” Culver said. “This is part of the process. There’s always a lot of jockeying.

“All I can tell you is that as governor, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure Iowa has the first caucus in the nation. I’m confident that we will.”

Culver said state officials will wait for South Carolina’s announcement and New Hampshire’s response before charting Iowa’s strategy.

The governor said he hopes the caucuses can remain on Jan. 14, but he’s not ruling out transforming the 2008 Iowa caucuses into a 2007 event.

“We will do whatever we have to do to protect Iowa,” Culver said. “I don’t think as long as we give appropriate notice and timing that the date matters a whole lot. We just need to get it set.”

Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa, said he hopes the caucuses remain in January. And, like Culver, he wants both parties to hold their caucuses on the same day.

“That’s one thing we’ve been working together on,” Laudner said.

Todd Dorman can be reached at (515) 243-0138 or at todd.dorman@lee.net.

Eleven candidates are on the straw-poll ballot, but eight are attending the event and giving speeches. The speeches begin at 12:45 p.m., and the order is Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo, John Cox, Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Tommy Thompson and Sam Brownback. In addition, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Fred Thompson are also on the ballot.