South Dakota Capitol to Host Hand Count

Friday Feb 23, easily accessible to all legislators

I’ll never forget when I sat down with Rick Weible and he predicted the future.

It was about two years ago that I sat down with Rick Weible at a table in the Dakota County Government Center foyer. A few employees and attendees walked by, going about their business, unaware that what Rick was sharing with me would change the face of the Midwest forever.

Rick was explaining the election process problems he and others had discovered in 2020. The absentee process. The missing ballots in the Dakota County Post-election Review in 2020 (about 800 missing ballots). Later he shared that two Dominion printers had been ordered as and arrived in Dakota County shortly after the election. What for? There was also a van that was purchased. Again, same question.

A few weeks later I was sitting in a meeting with Rick Weible, Dan Wolbert, Kim Bauer, and the elections manager, the deputy, and their boss. Their boss is set to retire this year. The elections manager resigned some time ago. Not sure about the deputy.

In that meeting Dan was asking basic questions about the nearly 2,000-ballot discrepancy between the secretary of state's data and the reported results for a school board race in independent school district (ISD) 196. I remember the election manager's hand shaking so much it nearly set off an earthquake. Poor guy. He didn't ask for any of this, that I'm aware of.

Those were early days, it seemed, in Spring 2022. County groups were still forming. There were occasional video conferences between those who cared about election integrity above all issues, because of how critical is it is to have honest elections. Those were the days...

Without trustworthy elections, a growing number of people eventually come to ask the following question: Are our elected officials actually fairly elected? What if most of them are NOT?

There was much that was known about the phases of an election—registration, validation, tabulation, reporting—and the vulnerabilities and lack of transparency within each. Actually taking time to read manuals meant one could pick up on the the fake transparency and security that logic and accuracy tests, tabulator print-outs, and post-election reviews provided.

I'll never forget when Rick explained to me that, in Minnesota, the post-election reviews look at a mere 0.25% of all ballot positions. That's 1 out of every 400 statewide. (But hey! At least Minnesota has postelection reviews… until recently, South Dakota didn’t even have them.)

1 out of 400 is a pretty low bar when it comes to accessibility and credibility of an audit. And that low bar is the norm in other areas of the process.

But at that time, awareness, foremost my own, so was so low...

At that time I was yet to run for SOS and yet to see that political parties, and the forces that move them, are also involved in election interference, some of which I wrote about in my book in 2022.

As I said, it has been about 2 years since sitting down with Rick in the foyer of the government center after that day's commissioner meeting.

Much of what he talked about has come to pass. How did he know all this? (I don't think he is a time traveler. I don't think time travel is possible. And yet it has been said that our understanding of time is an illusion...)

This week, in South Dakota, after presenting to the testimony for bill 213, which received little opposition, and was nevertheless killed (sent to day 41), Rick shared his 17 slides with someone in Fall River county. That man then brought it to his commissioners, who promptly passed a resolution to... HAND COUNT upcoming elections.

This is the breakthrough, among many, that we needed and I believe we will continue to see throughout this nation.

Everyone, except a very small number, want to know how their elections work, and want them to work, for everyone. What sense is there arguing about it for four years, every four years. (That is all the time and who does division help?) It doesn't make sense to continue along that path, especially if there are gold standard options that legislatures in each state can take.

And now the SD Canvassing team and Rick et al will do a demonstration of the hand-counting on Friday the 23rd the Capitol rotunda in Pierre, South Dakota. Ballots are printed from the Clyman cast vote records (see uscase.org/hand-count-materials). 12 groups will count those ballots, showing the world, but most importantly the South Dakota legislators, how simple it really is.

In a world of deferment and plausible deniability, how can one deny awareness of hand counting when they see it on full display on their way to lunch?

Accountability is a choice. And I'm glad to have witnessed some of the great work regular people, men and women like you and me, are doing to choose accountability. It is a great responsibility and we are certainly up to the task.