The Minnehaha County ballot challenge fell outside state law

Officials with the South Dakota Secretary of State’s office say they are “deeply concerned” about the rejection of absentee ballots during the June 4 primary in Minnehaha County, and they don’t believe the challenge — posed by the leader of a group with strong ties to Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson fell within the bounds of state law.

Jessica Pollema challenged absentee ballots in two precincts on June 4. And while the county board rejected the challenge 5-16, in 4-16 the board rejected 132 of the 164 ballots that had been challenged, Anderson told members of the county poll. on board on Monday.

Pollema is the president of the South Dakota Canvassing Group, which claims the 2020 election posed “major problems” with the nation’s election systems, calls for a ban on mail-in voting, ballot harvesting and all voting machines, and has voracious support for Anderson , with members often showing up en masse at Minnehaha County Commission meetings.

Pollema told the Argus Leader on June 4 that the challenge was based on voter registration forms showing addresses on post office boxes in Sioux Falls. She claimed that the voters did not live in the city.

The superintendent of Precinct 5-16, where the challenge was denied, said Minnehaha County state’s attorneys countered that the people in question could be state residents who live permanently in an RV or are homeless.

More: ‘It was a bull rush’: Minnehaha polling station denies activist’s request to throw away ballots

Anderson told the committee that she was notified of the upcoming challenge the night before the election, and that she was unsure whether the district had contacted each individual voter to determine their identity.

Rachel Soulek, the director of election distribution for the South Dakota Secretary of State, told the Argus Leader in a statement that the office was notified of the challenge and rejected the ballots.

“We had a Minnehaha County official advise that what was disputed, according to state law SDCL 12-18-10 on items that are disputed, did not fall within those parameters,” Soulek said. “This is a matter at the provincial level, but we are deeply concerned and care about the right to vote for all eligible voters.”

SDCL 12-18-10 states that if a person has requested a ballot or voted absentee, “the person’s right to vote at that poll and election may be challenged only as to the identity of the person as the registered person that the person alleges or on the basis that the person has been convicted of a criminal offense or has been declared mentally incompetent by the competent authority within 15 days prior to the election.”

More: The Minnehaha County auditor wants every vote in the June 4 primary to be counted by hand

The issue of South Dakotans, sometimes called “RV voters,” is a real issue that the state has gone back and forth on how to address. For people who travel around the country part or all of the year, South Dakota’s lack of a state income tax can be an attractive benefit, and there are plenty of companies that allow someone to establish residency in the state by traveling there to spend a night. and fill out a form.

There has been bipartisan interest in addressing this issue – but now the state legislature has already passed a 30-day residency requirement for voter registration twice before repealing it shortly thereafter.

Pollema wrote critically about the repeal of the 30-day residency requirement for the conservative website The Federalist earlier this year, calling it out — along with bills that would share the state’s voter registration file and make it a crime to be a poll worker threaten – a “left-wing nightmare of a bill.”

Anderson has called for a hand-counted audit of every vote from the county primary election, which is expected to take place on June 25. She announced the decision at this week’s Minnehaha County Commission meeting and said it would take less than a day, citing an experiment she conducted where she said volunteers were able to count 636 ballots in 35 minutes.

The process would be led by groups of five people who were registered voters in Minnehaha County: two people who would read the ballots to two people who would review them, under the supervision of a supervisor. Anderson said she would like to see equal representation of political parties.

13,058 votes were cast in the primary elections in the province. Anderson is also expected to be at next Tuesday’s committee meeting to talk more about the pending voting issues.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: SOS Office: Minnehaha County ballot challenge fell outside state law