When I voted on Tuesday, I noticed City Clerk Denise Tucker stuffing envelopes with ballots, I thought it was kind of strange because I figured they would have already been sent out. Apparently not;
Absentee ballots weren’t mailed until Tuesday, a full two weeks after Paul TenHaken and Jolene Loetscher claimed the top two spots in the mayoral contest and Zach DeBoer and Curt Soehl beat out a crowded field in the City Council Central District to face off in the May 1 election.
“Technically, they can go earlier, but we didn’t have our ballots back and ready to go,†said City Clerk Tom Greco. The ballots are printed by a vendor in Minnesota.
By Wednesday afternoon, 736 ballots had been mailed, Greco said.
These are the kind of things happen when you have a (Uncertified) City Clerk running our elections. So if you live in California for the winter, good luck.
Minnehaha County Auditor Bob Litz said the city’s election laws are different than the state law he operates under. In state elections, he is required to offer absentee ballots 45 days prior to an election. Typically, the regular city election has a 15-day window.
“With the runoff it got scrunched by the time we got our programming and ballots back from the vendor,†Litz said.
They could have easily printed off 700 paper ballots on April 11 and hand counted them when they returned. If it is a close race, which I think the Central District council race will be, 736 missing ballots is not good.
While probably a majority of the ballots are mailed to people in Sioux Falls (I hope so) it surely puts the snowbirds at a disadvantage. But I have always been of the opinion you should have to live in South Dakota at least 10 months out of the year to qualify as a resident. If you are just using your SF address as a way to get out of paying a state income tax while living in California, you don’t deserve to vote for our mayor and city council anyway.
UPDATE: I’m also not buying the tw0-week turnaround at the printer. As a person who has worked in printing for over 25 years, there is such a thing as a RUSH. The printer could have easily knocked out the needed 736 ballots and overnighted them to SF within 3-4 days after April 10th.
I am also concerned that if the council race or mayor’s race is within 100-200 votes and half the absentee ballots never came back by Tuesday there could be some lawyers involved. And while that whole mess plays out guess who gets to remain as mayor? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
My immediate suggestion would be for the council to delay the election by one week and hold it on May 8th.