To Speed Counting, South Dakota County Wants to Start Earlier

[Image courtesy of courthouses.co]

Yesterday’s primary elections brought lots of political drama, as well as a continuation of concerns and frustration about the slow pace of results. One South Dakota county is seeking to join other jurisdictions in trying to head off slow reporting by getting a head start on the increasing number of ballots that come in before Election Day. KELO has more:

Minnehaha County [Sioux Falls] Auditor Bob Litz unveiled his proposed plan before the Minnehaha County Commission Tuesday.

He’d like to start counting absentee ballots before the polls close on election night. After counting ballots during last year’s general election went into the early morning, Litz feels a change is needed.

Litz is looking to speed up the ballot-counting process.

“I look for solutions because I think everybody is planning their parties. Everybody wants to know what’s going on. They want their answers now and they want them accurate, and I think we owe the public that to some degree to make that happen,” Litz said.

Litz says he looked at how Pennington County [Rapid City] handled its absentee ballots for ideas. Under his plan, even though the ballots would be counted the day before the polls close, the results of the votes wouldn’t be announced until after the polls close on Election Day.

“We’re not doing anything that we don’t normally do except we’re doing it earlier, and we’re withholding the results until we’re supposed to release at 8 o’clock the following night,” Litz said.

Litz can adopt the plan without the county commission’s okay, but he wanted to get the commissioners’ take on the idea.

“I think with the increase in absentee ballots that we’ve been seeing, I think this is a good idea,” Minnehaha County Commissioner Jeff Barth said …

Although nothing is decided yet, Litz hopes a quicker start on absentee ballots will let elected officials start their celebrations a little earlier than in the past.

Such a plan does come with challenges – in particular. how to keep results from accidental or deliberate release before the close of polls – but as the number of ballots cast before Election Day increases it does make sense to give election offices more time to count them, especially given the impatience of media and candidates for results.

The move is designed to head off criticism of “slow” (note scare quotes) counts, but not everyone is sympathetic:

Litz admits he took some heat for not finishing up the ballot counting for last year’s general election in November until 4 a.m., but Barth says last year wasn’t the worst.

“The first time I was elected County Commissioner I didn’t know I won until 7:30 in the morning, so these Johnny-come-lately candidates that are complaining about the slow-count, they haven’t been there,” Barth said.

The plan could go into effect for the state’s June 3 primary. Stay tuned – but BE PATIENT!