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

Some Minnehaha County voters were handed the wrong ballot, or a ballot with an incorrect ballot stamp on the morning of Election Day, according to the county's auditor.

Those issues occurred in legislative districts 2 (east of Sioux Falls, including Brandon and Valley Springs), 9 (west of Sioux Falls, including Hartford) and 25 (encompassing the remainder of Minnehaha County up to Dell Rapids), and were resolved by 10 a.m., county auditor Ben Kyte said.

More: Polls are now open for South Dakota's primary elections. Here's what voters are saying so far.

Mick Monger, 61, at the MariCar Community Center said he had to take a lunch break to vote because he and other voters were turned away earlier in the day.

“We were unable to vote, they said they had the wrong stamp,” Monger said, “I hope everybody else had the chance to get out and vote.”

'Limited number' of voters who cast the wrong vote

Ballots at polling precincts located at Church at the Gate on W 26th St. (3-11) and MariCar Community Center on N Valley View Rd (3-12) had the wrong ballot stamps, while other Minnehaha County voting places had ballots with candidates that didn't belong to their district.

That was only a "limited number," says Kyte, who's running for re-election on the Republican ticket against challenger Leah Anderson.

Most of the districts that saw these issues had recent redistricting boundary changes and precinct splits.

Based on the numbers he's seeing with issues where a voter cast a wrong ballot because a poll worker handed them the incorrect one, in most polling places it's less than a handful of ballots. He predicts, in total, that will amount to about 100 ballots.

'Training issues' for poll workers lead to wrong ballots handed to voters

Kyte chalks up these errors to training issues with poll workers on the ballot process and adjusting to the recent splits in precincts. His office started getting calls around 8 a.m. about reports of people getting the incorrect ballot or ballot stamp, shortly after polls started opening.

"Unfortunately it's a training issue, but they have good poll workers out there," said Kyte. "It's unfortunate this stuff happens and we feel terrible about it, but we tried to get on it right away."

It's not too dissimilar to prior elections, Kyte says, especially with split precincts where voters have gotten an incorrect ballot in the past.

More: Everything you need to know about South Dakota’s June 7 primary election

Kyte explained, as he's understood from the direction of the Secretary of State, that the auditor's office can't take out ballots once they're cast.

"If the poll worker gave them the wrong ballot and they voted and put it in the mailbox, I can't take it out," said Kyte.

If a voter cast a wrong ballot due to that mix-up error, that means they've already voted once and the ballot can't be corrected. In the case of whether a ballot is requested before Election Day and is put in the ballot box, the county auditor's office has the authority to spoil it and give them a correct one.

But that won't be the case for the roughly 100 voters who were handed the wrong ballot on primary day.

The ballots with incorrect stamps are still being considered as a viable ballot, said Kyte.

Not enough time to readjust precinct lines is the 'root issue,' says county auditor

Kyte told the Argus Leader with delays in Census data and the redistricting process being pushed back months, the county auditor's office didn't have enough time to adjust precinct lines consistent with districts.

"We couldn't do that because of the short timeframe," he said.

In Kyte's eyes, that's the root issue. The state redistricted at the end of December into January and that left less time for the county auditor's office to redraw every district line.

That process divided many of the county's precinct to have multiple districts in them, which could help explain the mix-up of ballots and ballot stamps.

Challenger to current auditor 'concerned' about ballot issues

Candidates in districts affected by the ballot issues on the morning of Election Day had concerns on whether it could sway election results.

"The difference of two ballots or 20 could be a race changer for some of these elections," said Jessica Pollema, Republican challenger against current Lincoln County auditor Sheri Lund.

Leah Anderson, a Republican running against Minnehaha County auditor Ben Kyte, said those issues were of "great concern" to her.

"I'm concerned because I've heard that people voted on the wrong ballot," said Anderson.

Voters will be able to cast their vote at the polls until 7 p.m.

This is a developing story. Stay with argusleader.com for updates.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Wrong SD primary election ballots given to some in Minnehaha County