In inaugural effort, Davison County navigates post-election audit without issue

Marcus Traxler, The Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D.
·4 min read

Jun. 19—MITCHELL — Man checked machine on Wednesday at the Davison County Courthouse, as the county conducted a post-election hand-counting audit of its primary election results from two weeks ago.

Among those in the audience of the courthouse meeting room was South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson, who said she was pleased by the process and the execution of the ballot review.

There

was no deficiencies or anomalies found in Wednesday's process

, which involved a five-person panel of citizens to review ballots by hand in specific races that were drawn at random earlier this month. The process was created by the state Legislature in 2023 and will be repeated following the November general election, as well.

"Anytime you go through a new process, there's new things you have to go through," Johnson said. "You have to handle the ballots, that's a lot of touching. The auditor is supervising and it's up to the team to figure out the best process and what we're doing is if there's suggestions or concerns, we can tweak the process going forward. We had to start somewhere and I think it's been good."

Davison County has a vote-tabulating machine, which counts ballots on Election Night. This year, the vote counting was completed in 2 hours and 23 minutes after the polls closed at 7 p.m., counting more than 4,300 ballots. On Wednesday, reviewing three individual races by precinct took 1 hour and 35 minutes to go through 374 votes cast in the selected races, which included one precinct of the Lake Mitchell ballot issue and two precincts of the Democratic Party's presidential primary.

Aside from giving directions at the start, Davison County Auditor Susan Kiepke wasn't involved in the audit because she administered the election on June 4. But being that this was a first-time process, the panel had questions and Kiepke attempted to provide clarifying answers. There were a few times where they asked questions of Johnson, the state official sitting a few feet away, for how votes were supposed to be marked on the tally sheet.

Kiepke admitted she was nervous about the auditing process but believed it went smoothly on Wednesday.

"I feel so good about it," she said. "I was not getting a lot of sleep lately just because it was a new process and we're trying to do something we've never done before. ... For the public, hopefully it was educational about how elections take place and they can see how it works."

The panel that reviewed the ballots included Davison County Commissioner Mike Blaalid, Davison County Treasurer David Beintema and three young citizens: Keatyn Wede, 19; Max Johnson, 19; and Halle Mickelson, 21.

"It was great to get some youth to help out and they were excited," Kiepke said. "I really believe in getting youth involved and we did that for some poll workers in the election, as well. I thought it would be a very good hands-on experience because we knew it wouldn't be a 12-hour process, it was only going to be a few hours."

"It was cool to see. It was not something you typically learn about or do," Mickelson said. "I enjoyed it, even if it was a little stressful."

"It's only going to get smoother over time," Beintema said. "There is a little bit of apprehension when you are on the board because you want to make sure you are doing it right and that you are being accurate. Moving forward, making the process as consistent as possible will be the biggest part of this."

The audit was conducted in the courthouse Emergency Management meeting room, in front of an audience of 10 people, which included poll watchers from recent elections, county commissioner John Claggett, Sheriff Steve Harr and members of the local news media.

Johnson, a Republican who was elected to the position in 2022 and ran on election security and integrity issues, said she was thrilled with the process. She said Davison County is one of five election audits she plans to attend in person, already having watched the process in Hughes and Stanley counties.

"It's just proof that the tabulators are tabulating," she said of the use of vote-counting machines. "I want to bring confidence back to the voters of South Dakota. The machines are not changing anything, they're just a reading machine for the actual marks on the ballot. South Dakota elections are still free, fair, safe, secure, accurate and transparent."

Johnson noted South Dakota has had tabulating machines in its elections since 2003 and the state has not had issues with its counts, plus there's regularly recounts for close elections.

"It's a check and balance system. ... I think the post-election audit system is important, because we were one of five states that didn't have a system of any kind. Watching citizens in action, it's important to be a part of the process between the counting and the witnesses," she said.