SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO) — Minnehaha County Auditor, Leah Anderson said slow reporting from the county’s IT Department led to perception of slow ballot counting by Minnehaha County.
During the Minnehaha County Commission meeting the commission received a briefing on the results of the Post-Election Audit, during which Anderson told the commission that she believes there are things that the county can do to make the election run smoothly.
Anderson said there were issues with the IT department reporting the election results to the state.
“One of those is the reporting that our IT department usually handles on election night, where they are reporting the results to the state,” Anderson said. “So while a lot of people thought we were here sleeping all night, we weren’t, we were working very hard and diligently to get those ballots counted, but because there was no reporting done by the IT department it looked like we weren’t doing anything.”
Anderson added historically they don’t report the results until they have all the absentee ballots counted.
“Unfortunately this time the absentee ballots have not all been counted until the very end process and that’s why the results didn’t get uploaded until the very end, which seemed like it took forever.”
Anderson said she believes in future elections they shouldn’t be waiting for absentee ballots to come through and they should be reporting the results as they come and just show the precinct isn’t fully complete.
Anderson said there were also some improvements made to the process as well
“One of the larger areas of improvement were the tally sheet that I had created space for 200 votes instead of 100 votes per tally sheet so that reduced the number of pieces of paper that each person had to sign,” Anderson said.
Anderson said she will be submitting a report regarding the 2024 election and further review of the election by the commission will most likely take place in January.
During the meeting, Minnehaha County Commissioner, Gerald Beninga, asked if Auditor Anderson with the legislative session coming up if she would have recommendations with the presentation.
Anderson responded saying the short answer is yes.
“I’m already working with legislators on a lot of these items, I’ve been in contact with legislators for quite some time. Many of them are open to how we can fix this and I have a lot of ideas and suggestions,” Anderson said. “Several that are new and seasoned legislators that are going to be in session. I do plan on working with them, and I do believe there is some definite room for improvement that would help all the auditors.”
You can watch the full Minnehaha County Commission meeting here
