Because yesterday was not nutty enough with Senator Tom Pischke facing felony election fraud charges, the Sioux Falls City Election said “hold my beer!” as the results whipsawed back and forth until only two votes separate front runner Christine Erickson and South Dakota Democrat Jamie Smith.
And from what I read, there are some provisional ballots (5?) yet to be counted.
Wednesday is going to prove nerve rattling to the candidates until those results are in. Then the recount will start.
In other Sioux Falls election news, Sara Pankonin emerged victorious over Michael Crane in Ward 2 City Council race, Zach DeBoer fell to Zak Okuwe who out-worked and out-polled him in Ward 5.
And in the at-large contest, James Oppenheimer dropped a bomb on Vince Danh, blowing him out on a 51-33% basis.
Keep reading, as I’ll have more notes on the Erickson/Smith contest as we hear more about those provisional ballots.
Might get roasted for this, but it has been my observation over the years in SD that conservatives are more apt to have their registrations up to date and less are contested. There is a good chance that a majority of those provisional ballots could be Jamie votes but there is a higher likelihood that they are rejected because registration wasn’t accurate. Again, that is just like my opinion, man.
who casts provisional ballots? people who left their identification at home? People who thought they were registered but were not?
Several years ago a pollwatcher told me some young people had shown up at the polls who believed they had registered to vote on-line. We cannot register to vote on-line; these individuals had been scammed into sending their personal information into some Black Hole and became victims of identity theft.
The undervotes will be looked at closely to see if there are markings that indicate an intended vote that may have been missed by the machine counter…
SD Canvassing in charge of hand counting? Weible back in South Dakota from Minnesota taking charge?
This recount could take awhile…. Both candidates will want to hand count half of the precincts. Bad news is the half each wants to hand count is the opposite half from the other. We may not know the mayor til August.
Heard Leah didn’t have enough ballots out. Is that true? People not able to vote?
Sorry to disappoint you but no this is not true. This was a municipal election. They ordered plenty of ballots but did not deliver all of them to the precincts and held some back. Precincts may have run short but more ballots were delivered by the City to any precinct that needed them. This was not a responsibility of the Minnehaha County Auditor’s Office. We did assist with the election by conducting Absentee Voting and Tabulation, and other various needs. My staff worked very hard to make this runoff election successful and so did the City Clerk’s office.
Why are all of the comments anonymous? Are people unwilling to be transparent?
Yes, several precincts ran out of ballots.
You seem to enjoy putting out the Democrat label, Pat. Why not name Christine as a Republican?
Cause Pat wants to sell his bling as a loyal ‘publican shill
This just in smith wins
I checked the City of Sioux Falls website and the completed count shows Christine Erickson up by 2 votes.
Christine Erickson – 18,280
Jamie Smith – 18,278
https://www.siouxfalls.gov/government/council/city-clerk/elections/results