A Tale of Two Audits

and a lesson on voter intent

South Dakota performed it’s first ever hand counted post-election audits for the June 4, 2024 primary election. There was much excitement and preparation for this event and many citizens turned in their names to the county auditor to participate in hand counting.

Our collective work in the 2023 legislative session secured a bill passed into law requiring a hand counted post election audit of 5% of the precincts in a county. Of course, David Wheeler’s version of the bill was passed, which was poorly written and barely qualified to be considered and audit, but as South Dakota was one of the last five states in the entire country to adopt an audit, it was better than nothing.

David Wheeler’s version of the bill allowed an out for any county that performed a recount of any race. However, administrative rule requires recounts to be done with a MACHINE, which defeats the purpose of requiring a hand counted audit. Lawrence County, for example, had candidates request recounts so they skipped performing an audit.

The tally sheet prescribed by the legislature and the State Board of Elections is antiquated, inefficient, and prone to errors. We have continuously brought this to the attention of the legislature, auditors, and the BOE, but our concerns fall on deaf ears. Most counties used the outdated method requiring hash marks, marking one, two, three, four with one color pen, and marking the fifth slash mark with another color pen. This method is painfully slow.

The BOE approved tally sheets also require horizontal columns for vote reporting, which is harder to read when the page starts filling up. The newly designed and tested vertical tally sheets, with numbers listed to check off, are significantly faster, easier to read, and much more accurate.

Old Tally sheet on the left, Hybrid used in Minnehaha County, and Best Practice tally sheet on the Right.

Reports from hand count trained citizens in Fall River and Davison counties expressed frustration and dismay at the use of the old method and the difficulty it caused. However, citizen volunteers stepped up and did a great job despite the poor training and methods used.

Secretary Monae Johnson showed up to watch Davison County in person. According to hand count trained volunteers that were in attendance, the process was disorganized and not well prepared. The article quotes Johnson’s intent to bring back confidence to the voters and that post election audits are important. (although she sent her office to testify against the post-election audit bills)

Then there was McPherson County. The teams there also used the old tally sheet method. They were given the results of the machine count in an effort to match the machine tally.

One of the volunteers said this “One of our 4 tables thought that when our numbers didn’t match the machine count that we were supposed to “think like the machine” in order to find the mismatch.  In essence, to see if the machine had actually made a mistake (like missed a vote) or if it had simply read that ballot according to its programmed machine standards that differ from how a human would interpret voter intent.  This table did the audit to check the machines accuracy. 

The other three tables did not do this. Instead, they simply read each ballot for voter intent and found many (8) times that the machines and hand count numbers didn’t match. 

So, if another county does an audit by hand, I’d advise them to be clear up front on the way they’re going to resolve discrepancies. And what exactly they’re doing the audit for. 

Knowing what you’re looking for, will help when you come across things like the example below:

We found a ballot that had absolutely no ink in the printed oval, but that had a perfectly shaped oval mark filled in right BESIDE it.  The machine had accurately read “no ink” in the oval, but the voter had clearly chosen a candidate. In fact, the voter had correctly filled in the ovals on the second race; right where they were supposed to be!”

Another citizen reported this: “They actually has 3 different precinct counts after the initial count, when they didn't match up the commissioner looked through the ballots deciding which ballots the machine might have read differently and changed that till they matched up.”

The Commissioner looked through the ballots for Precinct 1, determined how he thought the machine read them, and CHANGED the results to match the machine. (sounds totally legit right?)

When the results of the hand count did not match the machines, Auditor Lindley Howard is reported to have had a panicked deer in the headlights look.

Well, you’ll remember Austin Hoffman is the State’s Attorney there, and he went to work putting out slanderous accusations against the citizens. He also filed a Motion for Declaratory Judgement on June 20th to ask the judge to grant the auditor the right to unseal the ballots again for another re-count of the two precincts in McPherson county that did not reconcile to the machine counts.

The judge granted the request and June 25th was the date of the recount of the audit. Citizens said the allegations written in the brief as to why Precinct 3 needed to be re-counted were all lies. Hoffman filed two motions, the first one originally listed Auditor Lindley Howard vs. all the candidates in District 23 and then a second one was filed where the plaintiff and defendant were changed to McPherson County v. Lindley Howard. Four citizens had written up affidavits refuting the false claims made by Hoffman and Howard to deliver to the judge, but they were not accepted.

Then there was the issue of the number of ballots. The number of voted/counted ballots was disputed in Precinct 3. The numbers didn’t match, and with no proof or visible evidence of a purported “ballot in a sealed envelope”, the recount, conducted with Howard and Hoffman supervising, magically matched up the number of ballots to the machine counted number of 126. Each member of the hand count audit board for Precinct 3 are adamant there were 127 ballots, which they say they counted four times.

Precinct 4 Audit Board reported: Roseland 27, Lapka 98 and Undervote 2 =127

“What are the odds that the candidate totals also were 127? Precinct 3 is still a mystery as the first board members swear there were 127 ballots. Today when the new board (recount) counted it was 126???”

From Precinct 1: “They did find a ballot today that had a scratch of pen through the oval with two other candidates selected, and they counted it for the two candidates. When their tally was off, they realized the machine had counted the scratch as an overvote. They were able to reconcile their count when they saw this.”

And lastly, many eyes caught the flash of a sly smile and eye contact between Howard and Hoffman when the new and revised recount totals matched the machines. You can see from the comments here the great lengths that were taken to ensure the totals matched the machines, from instructions to think like a machine, revising results to determine how the machine interpreted the ballot marks, and digging through a pile of ballots to change the results to match how they thought the machine counted.

Folks - this is NOT how a hand count audit is supposed to be conducted. Machines cannot determine voter intent. People can. It’s clear from all the hoopla in McPherson County, voter intent is discarded like trash in order to match machine results. Excluding and overriding voter intent = disenfranchising voters.

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12-20-8. Precinct superintendent and precinct deputies to record intention of voter.

The precinct superintendent and precinct deputies, in counting the votes, shall endeavor to record the intention of the voter. The precinct superintendent and precinct deputies shall then hold the intention of the voter to be to vote for the candidate or candidates before whose name the voter has placed a mark.

Guess this is one state law election officials don’t have to follow if it fits their narrative?

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The June 25th hand count audit in Minnehaha was a completely different experience. Ten tables were set up with teams of five. Training started at 9:00 AM and the first ballots were handed out at around 10:30 AM. Batches of absentee ballots by precinct were distributed first, so teams could become familiar with the process before moving to the bigger batches from election day.

Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson intentionally did NOT provide the machine totals to the teams, and instructed them to determine voter intent. She wanted each team to come up with their own results. After all, the purpose of a hand count audit is to determine the accuracy of the machine programming.

The media showed up and circled like sharks all day. Deputy SOS Tom Diedrick made an unannounced appearance, sat in a corner with his head down for a while, and left without even having spoken to the auditor. Many candidates for office also showed up to watch the process, and some of them stayed all day until the very end.

Each team had at least one person who had been previously trained in hand counting, which helped immensely. Most teams picked it up quickly and once through a couple batches, found a rhythm. Democrats, Independents and Republicans were all represented at each table, worked well together, were polite, considerate, and were especially proud to have participated in this historic event.

Overall, it went very smoothly and notes were taken for what to modify for next time. By around 5:00 PM or so, some people had to leave so back ups were called in to fill those spots. They were administered an oath, shadowed a table for a round, and quickly jumped in. Several of the replacements had also been trained prior, and were ecstatic to get a call to fill in, as work commitments had prevented them from serving during the day.

The last precinct was counted by around 10:00 PM. 13,000 ballots were counted by hand. The press was hovering and pressing Leah for results and interviews. After having gone through the entire process, the time consuming problem was the amount of paperwork and signatures required that was ridiculously redundant. Yet another problem that can be attributed the Board of Elections. Over 50 of us were at that BOE meeting, and at the legislative rules review committee, pointing out errors and conflicts. Again, falling on deaf ears. The tally sheets and the paperwork for the audits needs to be modified prior to November. If the press and county commissions continue to demand accuracy and saving time, they should start by asking the BOE and SOS when they plan to fix the mess they made.

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A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE (Minnehaha):

Monday June 24 - entire county MACHINE RECOUNT - 10.5 hours, not including programming, testing, etc.

Tuesday June 25 - entire county HAND COUNT - 11.5 hours.

The entire HAND COUNT AUDIT was conducted with 50 people = 10 teams. Hand counting on election day would require at least 81 teams; one team of five for each precinct. Hand counting at the close of the polls on election night would take less than two hours for the biggest precincts. The recount and hand count required about the same amount of time.

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Anderson put together a spreadsheet comparing the machine results vs. the hand count results and included it in today’s County Commission meeting agenda packet. There were several races that differed by one vote, with the biggest difference being 4. However, rather than determining that the machines were correct, or finding a way to make the hand counts match the machines, Auditor Anderson use the BALLOT IMAGES she ensured were captured and saved (against the errant, incompetent and unlawful advice of the SOS office) and was able to determine voter intent was lost by the machine and the hand count was correct.

WHAT??? The hand count was correct? But machines don’t make mistakes and are NEVER WRONG, right?! And, that’s not what KELOLAND or Stu Whitney said!!!

This situation perfectly demonstrates what we’ve been saying for several years now. Machines cannot determine voter intent. Machines can only do what they are programmed to do. However, Anderson also demonstrated today that her review of the ballot images also revealed ballots that should have been kicked out by the machines and sent to the adjudication board, which were not. In a race separated by only a few votes, proper interpretation of each vote makes all the difference.

Contrast this picture again with McPherson County. Lindley Howard does not have the election management system available to her. She can’t view the cast vote records. They could only guess how the machine interpreted votes, because they do not have the tools needed and REQUIRED to audit. THEY WERE GUESSING. Voter intent was totally lost in McPherson County and voters were disenfranchised.

Think like a machine! Excuse us, but PEOPLE cast votes, NOT MACHINES, therefore people are much better at determining voter intent.

The media sharks looking for a juicy story waiting to declare the machines 100% trustworthy and humans as stupid as rocks went to McPherson County for their narrative, and Howard and Hoffman fueled the propaganda machine with their dehumanizing, unethical, and disturbing approach to auditing.

When Anderson was questioned as to whether she now trusts the machines and will not waste so much time auditing, she declared this is exactly why we need to audit and that she plans to continue to audit as thoroughly as she possibly can with the current election system she has to work with.

Our group collected dozens of ES&S logic and accuracy testing reports from individual counties for the primary election. Every single one of them failed, EXCEPT Minnehaha.

12-17B-5.1. Procedure for testing system before election--Test ballots retained.

…… During the test, a different number of valid votes must be assigned to each candidate for an office and for and against each measure. …….

Source: SL 2023, ch 49, § 2.

The above law was passed with the help of Rick Weible, thanks to him drafting it and supporting it’s passage with his expert testimony. Leah and her team developed a robust hand marked test deck with hundreds upon hundreds of extra ballots to bring the test decks into compliance with 12-17B-5.1. The test decks that come from ES&S are riddled with errors and every single one of them we have looked at failed to have a unique number of votes for each candidate and ballot measure.

That means every county we looked at has broken the law in this primary election cycle.

Why is this important? Because if Candidate A and Candidate B both have the same number of votes in the test decks, there is no way to determine if the programming for the counting of their votes is flipped, because they are the same. It’s no mistake that ES&S prints their test decks like this.

In Lincoln County, a hand counting team came across a ballot that had three ovals marked, but one had clearly been X’d out. Everyone at the table was asked what they thought the voter’s intent was, and all agreed that the voter wanted the two candidates selected and the one with an “X” was not to be considered. But the auditor overheard their conversation and told them they were not allowed to consider voter intent, but instead needed to think like a machine and only count the way the machine would count.

Lincoln County Auditor Sheri Lund also has the Election Management System available to her, and appears to have saved the ballot images due to the legal pressure put on her. However, Lund was still denying the existence of CVR’s up until recently and apparently did not take any of those tools available to her into consideration. Lincoln County, you are wasting at least $8,500/year for software that your auditor doesn’t use.

Voter intent was embraced in Minnehaha County. Leah Anderson demonstrated a master class of excellence. A true public servant that takes her job seriously and has gone above and beyond, leading the way for all election officials in the state and the entire nation.

Thirty years of auditing and accounting experience is proving to be the perfect skill set for an election official tasked with counting votes and being able to prove the results.

The rest of the auditors watching this, especially those in Lincoln, Pennington and Davison, might want to schedule a class with Leah Anderson on how to use their expensive equipment that they have been ignorantly unaware of using until now. Also watching today’s commission meeting made it clear to everyone in attendance the importance of the ballot images and exactly how they are used for auditing.

The media put out their cover stories. But they were just that. Cover stories for the DHS/CISA/FBI/C!@/CIS/DOJ/SOS/ES&S/deep state election stealing cabal narrative while the rest of us bask in the glow of the first successful and transparent 100% hand count audit ever in Minnehaha County and the variations of a 5% audit around the State. It took us three years of working in the legislature and BOE to get here. But we did it!

If you look at the successful primary election, dubbed a political earthquake, that didn’t happen just because people are mad about certain issues. The political earthquake was successful and the intent of the voters was made known BECAUSE we had eyes on every aspect of the elections and 100% hand count audits in multiple counties. Trent Loos discusses this very topic in this short audio clip found HERE.

Thank you to everyone who stepped up to help ensure this election was the first election in a long time people feel even the slightest bit comfortable with!!! Your efforts made all the difference in the world!

Even as we celebrate our wins, we must remember our way of life in South Dakota is on the ballot in November, and we need all hands on deck, and all conservative groups united by the time the general rolls around.

The next question we will ask is as Dr. Frank puts it: “How many bills in the till are counterfeit?”

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And another new Substack to follow for our West River friends : https://substack.com/@thespearfishspeakeasy This is going to be one to follow!