As questions continue to circulate in regard to the transparency and accuracy of our elections across the nation, County Commissioners decided this past week to deny a request for hand-counting votes in Moody County. The hand count is increasingly being called for to ensure all votes are correctly counted and there is no way numbers might be manipulated or miscounted. South Dakota this past year, in order to address concerns, enacted a mandate that a post-election audit be done to verify the machines are processing votes correctly.
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State law is very specific when it comes to transparency, Tawny, (Moody County’s Auditor) when she does her audits of election machines before election, that’s open to the public and it’s required by law to be open to the public. On the night of election if people want to come to the courthouse and watch the machine run, that’s transparent. Canvassing is transparent in the fact that that’s open to the public. The recount was certainly open to the public as well and now having been through two of those, again, the machine works just as well as people working off the back end for recounts”
Moody County States Attorney Paul Lewis
By Carleen Wild
Moody County Enterprise
Local county resident Gwen Reker wasn’t alone this time as she spoke with Moody County Commissioners about her interest in seeing future election ballots hand-counted in Moody County.
She had visited briefly with Commissioners in March to ask that the item be included on an upcoming agenda for consideration ahead of a big election year. This past week, a number of others also interested to see the county approve a second level of confirmation on ballots cast, were with her.
“I don’t know that there is a lot of doubt in Moody County about the integrity of our elections,” Reker told the Commission, as she explained the reasoning for her request.
“But I think it would eliminate any doubt that is out there to reinforce that our elections are accurate.”
The conversation surrounding hand counting of election ballots in the U.S. continues to evolve around concerns regarding election integrity, accuracy, and transparency.
A growing number of proponents nationwide and here in South Dakota argue that hand counting provides a more reliable method of verifying election results, reducing the risk of error or tampering associated with electronic voting systems. They believe hand counting ensures each vote is accurately recorded and can help build trust in the electoral process.
Opponents tend to raise the issues of logistical challenges and time constraints, especially in large-scale elections. They also argue that modern technology, such as optical scanning machines, streamlines the process while maintaining accuracy. Concerns about human error during manual counting also tend to be raised, as well as the potential for delays in announcing election results.
Every single one of these was brought up in the Farmer’s Room this past week in response to Reker’s request.
Reker pressed the Commission, saying she is concerned that voting does not have a double check. Advocates like her are currently raising the issue currently in 47 of the state’s 66 counties.
“We would not accept a bank statement without each transaction recorded. We would not allow the bank to say that ‘the statement is correct because we checked a small proportion of transactions and they were correct,” she told the board.
State’s Attorney Paul Lewis responded that the State already mandates a great deal of transparency, has put a new post-election audit in place statewide to offer assurance that the tally is correct, and recommended the Commission leave things as they are.
66 counties all doing things very differently in regard to verifying votes, he said, would create an even bigger mess.
“State law is very specific when it comes to transparency,” Lewis stated.
“Tawny, (Moody County’s Auditor) when she does her audits of election machines before election, that’s open to the public and it’s required by law to be open to the public. On the night of election if people want to come to the courthouse and watch the machine run, that’s transparent. Canvassing is transparent in the fact that that’s open to the public. The recount was certainly open to the public as well and now having been through two of those, again, the machine works just as well as people working off the back end for recounts.”
The state’s new auditing process, according to Auditor Tawny Heinemann, now mandates that after this next general election, she will randomly have to select one precinct and manually count two races, one at the state level, one at the non-state level.
She will have to work with a board of up to five people appointed by her office, with representatives from both parties, to do a recount. Two people looking at the ballot and calling what they see, two people tallying. The different sets would be available in the event of discrepancies.
That should look at about 20% of the ballots cast in Moody County, Heinemann said, depending on precinct selected.
Commissioner Doyle and Commissioner Reker expressed that they would not be opposed to the request to hand count, especially if it showed consistent results. The other Commissioners expressed that it’s unnecessary, especially with the new state mandate for post-election audits.
Heinemann added that the level of mistrust in the system locally and nationally has many longtime, often older poll volunteers, considering no longer helping on election days as it’s too stressful.
