After 10-hour recount, full county hand count of ballots moved ahead on Tuesday, June 25

Date:

By Dave Baumeister

County Correspondent

UPDATE: This story has been updated and can now be found by clicking here.

SIOUX FALLS – Even though this week’s regular Minnehaha County Commission meeting on Tuesday, June 25 was brief, in the next rooms, around 50 county residents were preparing to conduct a hand-count audit of all the county’s ballots in the recent primary election.

Auditor Leah Anderson told commissioners last week that she wanted to take advantage of the overall low voter turn-out to count all the ballots by hand.

A new state law requires all counties to audit at least 5% of the total ballots in an election, and that, coupled with the low 9% voter turnout in Minnehaha County, is what prompted the hand count.

However, with questions on June 18, it was unsure what would happen after the hand count.

Anderson explained that if there was a discrepancy in the count, candidates would have a brief window to ask for a recount, making that a possible “second recount” in this election.

several people at tables in a room
Around 50 Minnehaha County residents sat at tables in two rooms on the third floor of the county administration building on June 25 doing a total hand count of more than 13,000 ballots from the June 4 primary election races. While Auditor Leah Anderson originally estimated the process would only take three to five hours, this photo was taken at eight hours into the counting, and, at that time, the end was still not in sight. Just the day before a recount from the election took place that reported lasted over 10 hours. (Photo by Dave Baumeister)

On June 18, Commissioner Jean Bender asked Anderson several times if the auditor was thinking of the hand count as a recount.

Although Anderson never directly answered Bender’s question, she did say the hand count could lead to a recount.

However, according to state law, the hand count, in itself, does not serve as a recount, and any recount that was called for would most likely involve using the tabulating machines.

Because of that, no results of the hand count were available at press time.

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First recount

The day before, on Monday, June 24, an “official” election recount was completed.

According to Commissioner Dean Karsky, over 300 workers and spectators, along with four attorneys, were in attendance at a recount that took 10-and-one-half (10.5) hours to complete.

That process was overseen by a three-member board under the supervision of 2nd District Presiding Judge Robin Houwman.

Two of the races, one for precinct committeeman and the District 11 state House race, came out exactly the same as in the original count.

However, at the time of the original count, there were 132 disputed ballots that a precinct committee disqualified for reasons of questionable addresses, and those ballots were ordered to be put back into the mix for the recount.

While those ballots did not figure into the other races, they did for the third recount, which was asked for by county commission candidate Roger Russell who originally lost to the incumbent Dean Karsky by 85 votes.

But with the other ballots added in, Russell fell back even further to Karsky, this time coming in third place by a difference of 108 votes.

Challenger Cole Heisey picked up the most ground with 44 of the originally discounted ballots to finish in first place with 5,416 votes.

(Heisey and Karsky will now face Independent candidate Anny Liebengood in the November general election).

Although Anderson told commissioners last week that she believed the audit would only take three hours (which amended to five hours, figuring in training and breaks), the count was into the ninth hour, and still was not finished.

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