Minnehaha sets audit date, post election review
Nov 08, 2024
SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO) -- Minnehaha County Commission has canvased the votes for the 2024 general election. The results were approved with a unanimous vote of 4-0.
The county commission's election results will go to Pierre where the Secretary of State's office it will canvass votes from across the state.
During the canvassing, commissioners compared numbers from the abstract results to the official results
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Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson said she is proud of the results of the election.
"Overall despite, the fact that yes this took a long time, but overall Minnehaha county held a very successful general election, our voter turnout was great at about 70% based on active registered voters of 136,817, we used active numbers instead of active and inactive when we look at turnout. We had about 20,707 absentee ballots 66,941 election-day ballots," Anderson said during the meeting.
The county had a total of 95,648 ballots to count, according to the SOS. The count was finished on Wednesday afternoon. It took nearly 20 hours to complete the tabulation.
The county will also be conducting a 5% post-election audit. The audit will look at the votes for precincts 05-09, 03-17, VP-13, 02-09, and 04-05 as well as covering the votes for U.S. Representative and Initiated Measure 28 in Minnehaha County.
The audit for Minnehaha County will start with training at 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 21. The official audit will start after training is complete.
Anderson said she was overall very pleased with the process.
"Considering with how many ballots we were working with I was very pleased at how that process went and how they reconciled pretty well and we did not have a lot of errors when it came to the reconciliation process, now that's a little different if we move on to what happened with resolution," Anderson said.
Commissioner Jean Bender said the county has a history of a post-election review and would be very supportive of reviewing the election process and speaking about what could be improved.
Commissioner Joe Kippley said they would expect to see that result sometime after the audit but before the legislative session.