First Post-Election Audit Board Meets

    For the first time last week, a post-election audit board convened in Marshall County. Their task was to compare paper ballots from the June 4 primary election to results produced by the voting tabulation system. Following legislation passed last year, a board like this will now meet following every statewide primary and general election. South Dakota joins 41 other states that have some sort of post-election tabulation audit.
    In March of 2023, Senate Bill 160, which creates a post-election audit following the state canvassing of a primary or general election was signed into law.  
    County auditors are now required to conduct a post-election audit in 5% of precincts in the county by manually counting all votes cast in two contests and comparing the results of the manual count to the results for those precincts at the county canvass. In other words, ballots from the race are hand counted by a board and checked against the voting machine’s results. 
    Marshall County Auditor Megan Biel appointed the group of five. It was comprised of Kalissa Stelzer, Linda Haaland, Thomas Shileny, Ryan Biel, and Bridget Shileny. As per state law, the board could not all be comprised of the same political party. The Marshall County group was made up of two Republicans, two Democrats and one Independent. 
    The drawing of precincts for the audit was completed during the June 6 County Commission meeting. Precinct 4 was selected first. Since there were less than 100 ballots cast in that precinct, another precinct was required to be drawn in addition to Precinct 4. Precinct 1 was then selected. 
Two contests from the election are required to be audited. Given that Marshall County only had two in the recent primary, the Democratic Presidential and the District 1 Republican Representative races, both of those contests were audited by the board. 
    When the board met at the courthouse last week, they were required to take an oath and sign paperwork before their work got started. The process of hand counting the ballots then went smoothly. The five members of the board carefully observed each other’s activities and double checked all counts. The number of ballots and votes in both races in both precincts exactly matched the counts of the voting machines. 
    Biel subsequently sent the results of the audit to the secretary of state and presented the results to the commission at this week’s meeting. The results will also be included in the minutes of the commission meeting and eventually posted on the secretary of state’s website. 
    Biel said she was pleased with how the post-election audit ran. She acknowledged that she has faced more questions in the last few years about election integrity, but she has always been confident in how Marshall County runs and tabulates elections. 
    “If anyone does have questions about how elections work and what we do, I would encourage them to observe our public test of the tabulation machines or come work at one of the elections,” she added. 
    The general election is set for Nov. 5.