The ballots have been counted and canvassed, so the Nov. 5, 2024, general election results in South Dakota are official. Now the Secretary of State’s Office and each individual county auditor’s office is conducting an audit of election results.
Finance Officer Thomas Oliva says Hughes County is doing its audit this morning (Nov. 19, 2024).
Post-election audits are meant to check the accuracy of the electronic voting machine tabulators and must be conducted within 15 days of the completion of the state canvassing of a primary or general election. During an audit, voted ballots from 5% of the precincts in each county– randomly selected by the county auditor in front of the county canvassing board without the use of a computer– are hand counted. Those results are compared to the results produced by the automatic tabulating equipment that was used in the election.
For the June 2024 primary election, of the state’s 66 counties, the tally shows 52 had no discrepancies, 10 didn’t need to do an audit because they had close races requiring a recount, 3 counties had 1 discrepancy and Minnehaha had 2 or more discrepancies.
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