South Dakota suffered from a low turnout in Tuesday's primary election, with less than 20% of eligible voters casting a ballot. In Minnehaha County, that number dropped to 9.97%, and in precinct VP-10 in Garretson, it was even lower, with only 200 votes cast out of a possible 2,032 (9.8%).
Choices on the VP-10 ballot were limited, with Republican ballots listing a South Dakota Senate challenge, a Minnehaha County Commission challenge, and a precinct committee person seat. Democratic and Independent voters only had the choice of presidential challengers to incumbent President Joseph R. Biden.
In District 25, which includes Garretson, Baltic, Dell Rapids, and Flandreau, incumbent Tom Pischke successfully regained a chance for his seat in the South Dakota Senate with 1,085 votes (70%) versus his challenger, Jordan Youngberg. Youngberg garnered 30%, or 470 votes. Pischke will now be up against Democratic challenger Brian Wirth in November.
In District 2, which includes Brandon and Valley Springs along with eastern Sioux Falls, Jake Schoenbeck (16%) lost to John Sjaarda (46%) and David Kull (38%) for South Dakota State Representative.
For Minnehaha County Commission, there were four options, of which voters could choose two: Cole Heisey, Roger Russell, Dean Karsky, and Dan Kippley. Karskey was seeking re-election, and came in second with 25% (3,928 votes). Coming out on top was Cole Heisey, who won with 34% (5,359 votes) of the vote. Russell came in third with 83 fewer votes than Karsky, and Kippley, who is the father of current commissioner Joe Kippley, garnered 17% of the vote.
Karskey and Heisey will face Independent Anny Libbengood in November.
Committeewoman had two challengers for one seat on the Republican ballot, Tamara Panning and Melinda Roth. With only 127 votes cast, Roth came out ahead of Panning 52% to 48%.
With 2,856 votes cast in Minnehaha County for the Democratic Primary, current President Joe Biden took 75% of the vote. Challenger Marianne Williamson came in second with 9%, Minnesota's Dean Phillips had 7%, and Armando Perez-Serrato had 4%.
UPDATE 6/13/24: Karsky and Heisey will face independent Anny Libbengood in November. The original article mentioned Kippley instead of Heisey. We apologize for this error.
