Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight
The top election official in South Dakota’s most-populated county continued to cast doubt Tuesday on past election results reported by the county, while explaining plans to recount the results of two elections by hand and saying 132 ballots rejected during the June 4 primary will remain omitted from the official count.
Dozens of people crowded into a Minnehaha County Commission meeting in downtown Sioux Falls to hear County Auditor Leah Anderson’s comments.
Anderson, a Republican elected in 2022, has associated with people who refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election. Last week, Anderson appeared in an online interview with election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, the CEO of the MyPillow company.
Recount of 2020 presidential election ballots
Anderson announced in a news release last week that she reviewed digital data from the 2020 presidential election in Minnehaha County, saying there were “alarming” discrepancies between the official canvassing results and audit logs. Anderson alleged there were over 24,000 ballots unaccounted for by tabulator machines, based on the data she reviewed. She presented a screenshot of a spreadsheet of her findings to the county commission Tuesday morning.
Anderson told reporters after the meeting she plans to open the sealed ballots cast during the 2020 election, review them all by hand and check them against the canvassed results from the election. She told commissioners the full audit will take more than a couple of weeks.
She told South Dakota Searchlight she will confer with the Minnehaha County state’s attorney about the process, since it’s “not clearly covered in South Dakota codified law,” and that any audit would be public and conducted by an auditing board.
“I will move forward with it until someone tells me legally I can’t,” Anderson said.
County Commissioner Joe Kippley told Anderson it’s “irresponsible” to release her findings when the county has just finished its primary election and is planning to recount three close races and conduct a 100% post-election hand recount in the next week.
“To release this and a screenshot of a spreadsheet that’s supposed to be some smoking gun, there’s just no ‘there’ there. And to release that halfway through? That would be my critique of the conduct here,” Kippley said. “If we’re looking for faith and credibility and integrity in a process, we should follow that process.”
Rachel Soulek, director of the Division of Elections for the South Dakota Secretary of State’s Office, said in an emailed statement that Anderson is making “some big claims she never brought forward to our office.”
Soulek added that no discrepancies were found when the 2020 election results were canvassed days after the election. Soulek also suggested that the data Anderson reviewed might not be complete, since counties are only required to keep election materials for 22 months after the election.
“They were able to start ridding and recycling materials well before Ms. Anderson took office,” Soulek said, in part. “… Ms. Anderson’s claims are mostly taken out of context of what is fact, and used to run her own narrative.”
Minnehaha County Commissioner Dean Karsky said he supports Anderson’s plans.
“I, for one, am looking forward to an explanation of the 24,508 ballot difference,” Anderson said. “It’s the auditor’s job to find that, and if something is there I’d like to know about it, what it is.”
Auditor plans to audit 13,000 ballots in 3 hours
Anderson plans to conduct a full hand recount of the county’s June 4 primary results at 10 a.m. on June 25 in the Minnehaha County Administration Building. The ballots were originally tabulated by machines.
Anderson will direct 51 workers to audit all 13,058 primary ballots, which she estimates will take three hours to complete. State statute requires a post-election audit of only 5% of ballots, but Anderson said that isn’t “adequate.”
At $18 an hour and including breaks and training, she said that’ll cost the county about $4,500 — though she added that some workers have elected to volunteer or not accept payment for their time.
“For anyone who says they’d like to volunteer that time, we’re going to make sure we have that documented ahead of time,” Anderson told commissioners.
Moody County, north of Minnehaha County, conducted its post-election audit on June 13. Auditor Tawny Heinemann said it took her counting board of five people about an hour to audit 104 ballots for two races.
“It was very similar to our mock post-election audit time,” Heinemann said. “Seeing and hearing from other auditors who’ve wrapped up their post-election audits, it seems pretty consistent: An hour for a hundred votes is kind of what I’m seeing, with most doing two races.”
Heinemann added that “everything checked out and balanced” for Moody County’s post-election audit. Counties have 15 days after the state canvass to conduct their post-election audit.
Minnehaha County’s 100% post-election audit will follow a recount of three close local races on June 24 at 9 a.m.
RV snowbirds voice concerns with discarded primary ballots
Kevin and Carol Alishouse don’t have a brick and mortar residence. They drive an RV and use the DakotaPost mail forwarding service when they’re out of state.
Since they list the mail forwarding service as their voter registration address, they are placed in a “voting reservation,” Kevin said. Precinct 4-16 in Minnehaha County consists only of DakotaPost clients. Your Best Address mail forwarding service is Precinct 5-16.
A precinct board rejected 132 absentee ballots in Precinct 4-16 during the primary election after the president of the South Dakota Canvassing Group, Jessica Pollema, challenged the ballots. Pollema also challenged ballots cast in Precinct 5-16, but those ballots were not thrown out.
The challenges were based on a South Dakota law that requires voters to live within the state for at least 30 days before registering to vote.
Now the Alishouses are worried their votes in the presidential election in November will be challenged and thrown out, Carol told commissioners. The Alishouses’ ballots were one of the 41 accepted in Precinct 4-16 during the primary.
“We are now discriminating against a group of people who South Dakota welcomed and wanted their money. You take my taxes very willingly — thousands and thousands of dollars we pay here. We have concealed-carry licenses, we have hunting licenses,” Carol said.
Auditor Leah Anderson said the rejected ballots will not be included in recounted races.
Meanwhile, Pennington County Auditor Cindy Mohler told South Dakota Searchlight that ballots cast in the primary election through mail forwarding services in the western South Dakota county were also challenged. The county’s absentee board dismissed the challenge.
Amber Hobert, president of DakotaPost, said 173 of the company’s 5,400 customers voted in the June primary — 132 of the ballots were rejected, and 41 were accepted.
Customers who list DakotaPost on their voter registration forms are legal South Dakota residents, Hobert said. They have to provide a copy of their South Dakota driver’s license when they register to vote (or the last four digits of their Social Security number), and the business ensures that customers are present in-person when they sign up and provide two forms of ID approved through the U.S. Postal Service.
“These people are United States citizens. They’re citizens of South Dakota, and the Constitution protects the right to vote,” Hobert said. “I don’t think the 30-day law is very well crafted, and there are some serious legal concerns around the law.”