Voters know what their job is this election. But what happens after they vote? To learn more about what happens once South Dakotans cast our ballots, SDPB’s Lura Roti talks with those working behind the scenes.
“It’s tightly planned. There’s a lot of chaos, but there is still organization behind the chaos. Just one thing after another,” says Bob Litz.
That’s how Minnehaha County Auditor Bob Litz describes Election Day and the people and processes in place.
Minnehaha County is home to more than 138,000 registered voters. And this year Litz expects many of those voters to cast a ballot. To help process the surge of mail in ballots as well as ballots cast in person, Bob Litz put together a qualified team of 700 to work November 3rd. That’s 200 more volunteers than the last general election. Even with COVID-19, he’s had plenty of volunteers from both parties to choose from, and Litz is selective.
“Putting somebody in place on Election Day, it isn’t just, well here. Here is a warm body,” says Litz. “What I do is pull their voter registration up and see if they’ve been an engaged voter. Then I’ll call them and talk to them. And you know, if they’re too politically biased, I probably not gonna hire them.”
He explains that hiring an equal number of volunteers from each political party is among the many checks and balances in place on Election Day.
“When I hear somebody say, “oh, there’s fraud out there,” or something like that, you know come on down and I’ll put you in there, and you tell me that after you’ve worked a couple cycles of elections. It’s very difficult to have any massive, widespread fraud with all these different kinds of people,” says Litz.
To ensure every vote is counted, several protocols are in place throughout the process beginning when a voter arrives at their polling place or requests an absentee ballot explains Brown County Auditor Cathy McNickle.
“Every ballot that’s issued, voted or not voted, gets accounted for on Election Day,” says McNickle. “So each polling place creates a recap sheet, which tells you how many people they checked into the poll book that day and how many ballots were cast. And then we count them vote center by vote center in our tabulator and we make sure that if the voting center says 100 people came to vote, and we have 100 ballots cast on the tabulator. It’s a pretty simple process. We take our time and make sure that everything is accurate and accounted for.”
This and other voter fraud prevention processes are in place across South Dakota whether a ballot is cast in more populated counties like Brown and Minnehaha or more rural areas like Harding County.
“There’s three of us on the board. I guess you call it a board. And one of us looks at his, I’ll use “his” as generic, looks at the identification to make sure that is all valid, and then we give him the instructions as to how to vote and how to load your ballot into the sleeve and how to return it. And that’s really about all,” says Claudia Vroman.
Claudia Vroman is a Harding County Army veteran and cattle producer who has volunteered as a poll worker on Election Day since the early 1970s. She takes her role in helping ensure each vote is counted seriously.
“When the voter comes back to the table to hand in their vote, the voted ballot, they slide it into this voter box that’s all sealed up. And then, at the end of the day, we seal it up with a sticker and take it back to the courthouse. Usually all three of us go to the courthouse with the voted ballots and the other stuff we have,” says Vroman.
After poll workers like Claudia deliver ballots to the Auditor's Office, the ballots are run through a tabulating machine. The tabulator provides reporting to ensure all ballots are accounted for. It also totals up the votes cast explains Cathy McNickle, the Brown County Auditor.
“When you cast your ballot and you fill in the ovals, the machine can actually read those ovals and identifies what candidate you voted for. So it’s a very high tech machine and we’ll use that on election night,” says McNickle. “One thing that is important to know is we do multiple testings of that machine before the election. Then we also test it on Election Day to ensure that it is accurately gonna report results.”
The County Auditors say if a voter’s ballot is cast on or before November 3, their vote will count. With only a few weeks left until Election Day, if you are voting by absentee ballot, the auditors encourage voters to hand deliver their ballots to the County Auditor’s Office.
For official absentee ballot drop off locations, contact your local County Auditor’s Office.