Poll watcher Rick Weible observes the counting of ballots during the city and school board elections in Sioux Falls on April 9, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
The South Dakota Board of Elections on Wednesday did not approve petitions from activists seeking to get the state to hand-count ballots.
A Republican Senate candidate, Rick Weible, of Elkton, petitioned the board for declaratory judgments. The petitions asked the board to take several actions, including deeming certain election tabulation software noncompliant with state law and decertifying its use. The board did not honor the requests.
Board member Scott McGregor said afterward that Weible and his supporters routinely attend board meetings to pursue their agenda.
“It’s about getting back to counting our elections by hand,” McGregor said.
He added that Weible and others present have been misled into saying that the appointed board serves an administrative function and does not make laws.
“They need to talk to the legislature,” McGregor said.
During the rally, Weible and his group lashed out at Republican Secretary of State Monae Johnson, the state’s top election official. Weible helped Johnson win office, and while campaigning she repeatedly declined to say whether she accepted the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Participants at Wednesday’s rally accused Johnson of betraying them since she won office. She didn’t respond.
Meanwhile, three South Dakota counties will ask voters Tuesday whether they should ban the use of calculators in future local elections. Each of the measures was placed on local ballots by members and supporters of a group called South Dakota Canvassing, of which Weible is a member.
If passed, the measures would require accounting firms in each province to manually count ballots in the Nov. 5 general election and beyond. The votes are in Gregory, Haakon and Tripp counties.
This article first appeared in the South Dakota Searchlighta sister site to the Nebraska Examiner in the States Newsroom network.
The post Activists Fail to Convince SD Board of Elections to Proceed to Hand Count appeared first on Nebraska Examiner.
