By Dave Baumeister, County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – Minnehaha County Auditor Bob Litz commended the hard work of his staff during the June 2 primary election at the Tuesday, June 9 regular county commission meeting.
He also addressed some problems they had on election day, but overall, he felt that things went well.
One difficulty they ran into was not having absentee ballots sorted by precinct, which had to be done before they could be tabulated.
While current law says those ballots couldn’t be counted until the actual day of the election, the sorting work could have been done earlier.
However, the workers who would have done that were still busy processing applications for absentee ballots right up to the day prior to the election.
Litz felt that other problems came from some being impatient and wanting to have results immediately.
“Something as important as voting shouldn’t be rushed,” he said. “How many people really need immediate results?”
He stressed that he felt accuracy was much more important than speed.
In total, Litz reported his office had requests for 40,343 absentee ballots.
Of those, 30,234 ballots were returned. It was unknown how many of the 10,109 ballots were people not voting, and how many were people who voted on election day.
Commissioner Jeff Barth, who worked at the Renner precinct, said he had several people come in with absentee ballots who ripped them up, so they could vote that day.
But to Litz, the bottom line is that if the trend to increase absentee voting continues, the auditor’s office may need to add more staff at every election.
People lined up along the east side of the Minnehaha County Administration Building are among those in a 2½- to 3-hour wait for help at the treasurer’s office. According to Treasurer Pam Nelson, since her office reopened on June 1, this has been a daily occurrence, and sometimes the lines stretches out the south door and goes all the way back to the court building. While they didn’t come up with any solutions, Nelson and the commissioners were concerned about how to reduce these lines. (Photo by Dave Baumeister)
Triage Center moves ahead
Commissioners said this meeting marked a “momentous day,” as they unanimously voted to become part of the Joint Partnership Agreement for the Community Triage Center with the city of Sioux Falls, Avera McKennan and Sanford.
The agreement calls for the county to spend $100,000 this year, and then $400,00 per year for the next three years to develop the center at 8th and Dakota in Sioux Falls to deal with non-violent people who have drug and alcohol addictions.
Commissioner Cindy Heiberger said she was glad to see this next step in a process that has been “many, many years in coming.”
Back to normal (kind of)
While this week saw the return of the county commission schedule to its regular weekly format, access to the meeting room is still limited in order to provide for social distancing.
During meetings, people attending are able to sit in the hallway or next room until it is time for the agenda item with which they are concerned.
On Monday and Tuesday commissioners began their budget hearings to develop the 2021 budget.
Like the regular meetings, these were held in the commission meeting room on the second floor of the Minnehaha County Administration Building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
There will be a third budget meeting on Tuesday, June 30, at 10 a.m.
The next regular commission meeting will be on Tuesday, June 23 at 9 a.m. in the same location.
The public is invited to attend any or all of these meetings. Public comment is always allowed and encouraged at any open government meeting.
