Minnehaha County auditor says she’s not sure she can trust county’s voting system

Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson had a contentious meeting Monday with the vendors of the county's election software, in which she claimed the company wasn't properly training her on the equipment, repeatedly criticized South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson and revealed near the end of the meeting that a group of at least two dozen of Anderson's supporters had been listening in to the hour-long call — unbeknownst to the rest of the participants.

Anderson said during the meeting she's looking for extensive checks both before and after the 2024 election and has said that she’s still not sure she can trust the city’s voting systems.

The video was posted by "Midwest Swamp Watch," a YouTube channel that promises to "monitor the activities of the MN, SD and National Political Swamp Creatures." It features a short introduction from Rick Weible, an election denier who served as an adviser to Johnson’s campaign, though Weible says she cut ties with him in November of 2022 and he’s since become critical of her actions as Secretary of State.

On the call were a number of executives and employees from Election Systems and Software, an Omaha-based company that provides voting machines across the country, including in Minnehaha County. Six members of the Secretary of State's office, including Johnson herself, were also on the call.

Anderson was joined by Mike Mathis, an elections coordinator for the county who has been involved with South Dakota Canvassing Group, an election security group that has called for banning machines and electronics from the voting process, as well as preventing mail-in voting and ballot harvesting. Mathis said at an Aug. 2, 2022 meeting of the Minnehaha County Commission that he had "no confidence" in the state's elections.

Chris Wlaschin, ES&S' chief security officer, said the equipment they provide goes through multiple tests, as does the software used to tabulate votes. He emphasized the devices did not connect to the internet.

But he did note that some devices use modems to quickly transmit some results, and added Minnehaha County does not. He said many states are pulling back from modems, which security experts say is a good idea.

Yet, Anderson raised concerns about a recent election in which ES&S machines had seen some votes flipped in a Pennsylvania judicial election. She was told by Wlaschin that the mistake had been due to a clerical error that was caught and fixed.

Wlaschin also recommended a "more robust" series of tests prior to the April 9 election to ease any concerns.

Mathis then questioned what reports he'd be able to look at "to know there's no weird stuff going on" during the election. Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Kathy Rogers said there was a "plethora of reports" that are produced by the machines, and encouraged pre- and post-election auditing to ensure that everyone felt at ease.

From that point, the call got less friendly. Anderson asked why she was the only auditor in the state asking these questions, and said she felt "attacked" for doing so.

Anderson added training she had been told would take place on Nov. 16 had been delayed due to two questions she had asked ES&S, and said she felt like the number of ES&S executives on the call was an intimidation tactic.

Rogers assured her that the amount of people on the call was an effort to be transparent and answer any questions she may have, but Anderson said she still didn't feel that she could trust the county's voting systems.

“Pretty much every day that’s my question that I get asked, 'Is do you trust our system? How can we trust it?'" Anderson said. "In all honesty, I can’t give an answer that I trust the system because I'm in the dark. I can’t even get training to happen without going through this call with 12 people or however many people are on this call. I want to understand the system and get the training for myself, and for Mike, because that’s what’s supposed to happen.”

Anderson said she wanted to audit "the entire system, start to finish," and expressed concern about procedures prior to her time as county auditor, including county employees having access to the rooms where voting machines are stored and equipment she said was being kept from her.

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"My electionware management laptop is being held hostage by the IT department," Anderson said. "They don’t think that it should be under my control. And I am the election official. It should be under my control and I should know how to operate it. Not IT. They do not swear an oath to me, so they should not have that computer.”

Anderson added she was considering canceling a planned vacation to ensure the training was completed, saying, "I’m not getting support from our Secretary of State’s office, and I’m not getting the training I need from ES&S right now.”

After several more mentions of an audit, Rogers asked what she was hoping to accomplish.

Anderson said she'd like to ensure all passwords were reset, make sure no modems were present in machines and check that software versions were up to date.

Rogers recommended using a Voting System Test Lab, one of two independent labs accredited by the Election Assistance Commission to do that. Those would require state approval and would incur extra costs, she added.

“By using one of these accredited voting system test labs," Rogers said," you can be assured that the people touching your voting system actually are safe and secure themselves and will do no harm to your voting system."

Mathis then asked if a "highly respected" person from South Dakota would be able to be present and perform their own inspection, though he did not name who that person would be. In an interview, Anderson said she knew the person’s identity but would not share it, as she had not spoken further with ES&S about the process.

Rogers said they hear similar requests often, and said they don't recommend it, as "there are people out in the world who also want to do harm."

"But your guy’s there!" Mathis said. "If your guy’s there, what can he do? I mean, we would make sure that he wouldn’t touch the machine, your guy would be there, present. So what could he do? I mean he could do no harm, right?”

Mathis continued that they'd want the individual to look for modems and do an inspection of the machine.

"Both Leah and I’s reputation is totally on the line. What if it comes out years down the road that there were modems in these machines, and we never — all your studies are great. The people want somebody that they know and trust to do a study. And I do too!"

Rogers emphasized that no one who is not an election official could touch or have physical access to the election equipment, but that others could be there and ask questions. She also recommended that someone from the Secretary of State's office be present to answer any legal questions.

To that, Anderson replied that “They haven’t proven to be very helpful with any other legal questions that I’ve had as an auditor, and I’m always referred to my own state’s attorney, so if anybody’s gonna be present I suppose it would just be my state’s attorney."

Anderson then said she was aware that someone had tried to invite the members of the Minnehaha County Commission to the call, several of whom have been critical of Anderson.

"You know, I don’t work for them, I work for the people. And ES&S is a vendor that the county pays a lot of money to. And most vendors that we pay money to really want to work with us, and I know you guys do as well now, you’ve said that, so I appreciate that. But the people that I work for, they’re not being part of this meeting, but they are listening, and they are here to support me. And so I just want to let you know that especially Monae, you also work for the people, and you haven’t been very supportive of the people."

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At this point, Anderson rotated a nearby laptop, revealing a group of two dozen people, including Weible, who had been listening in on the call from another location, and later gave Anderson a round of applause after the call had ended.

"So this is my room full of people," she said. "I just want you to know that this time I have a lot more witnesses that know that we’re gonna get this training and I hope that it’s gonna happen without any hitches."

Rogers said that while she didn't appreciate the move, no one had said anything they regretted during the call, and concluded by saying that their role was simply to build a voting system, and that no one was forced to be a customer of ES&S.

"Yeah that’s correct," Anderson replied. "It’s actually our Secretary of State’s Office that has forced us to either hand count or go with ES&S. We don’t have any other options. So I respect what you do at ES&S, I want to be able to trust every aspect of the count, and maybe we compromise and we let the tabulators count the ballots but we don’t use the reporting software I don’t know what the answers going to be but you know, we’ll figure it out.”

Apart from introducing herself at the beginning of the meeting, Johnson said nothing during the meeting, a fact Anderson criticized her for. Johnson's office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Rogers said they would provide Anderson with a statement of work about the training to be provided, including more information about auditing.

Correction: This story has been updated to clarify Rick Weible’s statements regarding Monae Johnson.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Minnehaha County auditor voices doubt on county’s voting system