A committee reviewing election issues in Minnehaha County moved one meeting closer to releasing what its chairman later called “a series of recommendations and critiques,” some of which could require changes made in the state Legislature. Election night issues last November kept the state’s largest county from reporting election results until 14 hours after the polls closed. That followed problems in the 2012 election and issues in last April’s city election. The seven-member committee heard testimony for well over two hours Friday and ended the meeting receiving copies of a draft report that will be examined during the next two weeks. That draft report will not be made public, said Robert Wilson, the county employee assigned to the election review committee. All this effort is designed to prevent what chairman Bruce Danielson described as “heartache and headache and voter frustration” when elections go wrong and people are unsure whether their vote will be counted properly.
That was the concern Brandon resident Joy Howe brought to the meeting, saying “the elephant in this whole discussion” is that ballots are being counted in secret without a public count. Using machines to count ballots can allow someone to steal an election, she said.
“You stick them into a machine owned by a company with dubious ownership,” Howe said, her voice rising. “It is not a public count, and we are guaranteed a public count.”
Attending Friday’s meeting were representatives from Scytl, which provides election hardware and software, and BPro, which provides election software. They were questioned on problems that occurred during a city election that led to what Brian Mortimore of Scytl described as a “broadcast storm.”
Full Article: Election review board may propose legislation changes.