Ballot issues with Minnehaha County primary resolved, final ballots tallied

Delays at election headquarters in Minnehaha County continued to delay primary results Wednesday morning, county auditor Ben Kyte and his staff worked to resolve a precinct where Democratic voters were handed incorrect ballots.

"We caught it because there's only eight registered Democratic voters in that precinct," said Kyte, who lost a primary election of his own Tuesday. "So the system says we're voting more Democrats than there are registered voters."

Those voters at MariCar Community Center, in precinct 6, should've received District 11 instead of District 9 ballots. Kyte said there was an over-vote of 21 ballots in that district.

As of noon Wednesday, Kyte confirmed those ballots were updated. The only other task on his plate left is reviewing about 30 provisional ballots for voters that wanted to have a vote on a specific candidate or ballot.

Results finalized by Friday

Primary results are finalized on Friday, when the auditor's office canvasses and submits final election numbers, with "reconciliations" for ballot issues, to the Secretary of State's office by 2:30 p.m.

More: Kyte out as Minnehaha County auditor; possible recount in one Lincoln County race

The "reconciliation issue" will need a court order to open the ballots that need to be re-processed and corrected. The ballots at issue were identified Wednesday morning.

Overall turnout was 27% for Minnehaha County where there are 127,161 active voters.

Kyte congratulates opponent Leah Anderson on a 'good race'

Kyte, who was appointed to the county auditor position in Dec. 2020 following the retirement of former auditor Bob Litz, kept busy on Election Day, but knew by the end of the night he lost.

"I could tell by people's expressions toward the end of the night," he said.

His opponent, Leah Anderson, almost consistently led Kyte by six points throughout the ballot counting process. Kyte congratulated her on a good race and the hard work that was put in to get Anderson's voter base out to the polls.

"She did a good job," Kyte said. "The voters decided what they wanted, so I congratulate her."

Although Kyte said he couldn't dedicate the time he wanted to campaigning and spent most of his time and effort toward seeing through a fair and transparent elections process, the county auditor has until March 2023 finish out his term.

As auditor, he dealt with crunched timelines to get redistricting done with the county's fast-growing population, oversaw two elections and worked through ballot issues in split precincts on Election Day where poll workers failed to give voters the right ballot.

More: 'Limited number' of wrong primary election ballots given to Minnehaha County voters, auditor says

He said he's not sure what his next steps are.

Anderson will face Democrat Brian Worth for the county auditor position in November's general election.

"Throughout my campaign, I discovered many many voters are concerned about election integrity," Anderson said. "The election process is one of the most important privileges we have as Americans. My goal is to preserve the sanctity of our elections in Minnehaha County and ensure that our votes count. While elections may encompass '20%' of the auditor’s responsibilities, in my opinion, it is the most important responsibility."

Email reporter Nicole Ki at nki@argusleader.com or follow on Twitter at @_nicoleki.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Overvote in precinct delays Minnehaha County's primary results