PIERRE, (KCCR) — Very few discrepancies were uncovered as a result of post-election audits done in counties across South Dakota. The Secretary of State’s Office released the results of the audits this week. Secretary of State Monae Johnson says of the few issues, they appear to be due to the manual counting looking at voter intent and not limiting their counts to definitive marks made on ballots. Some counties conducted recounts due to close races and did not hold post-election audits, which is permissible under state law. Jones County, along with Charles Mix, Clark, Codington, Douglas, Fall River, Hamlin, Lawrence and Pennington did not conduct audits due to recounts. One discrepancy was found in Mellette County and in Lincoln County. The Lincoln County discrepancy was not investigated. Minnehaha County has the most discrepancies. They varied, depending on the race from three-minus or four plus votes comparing machine tabulators to hand counting. Most races in Minnehaha County varied by plus or minus one vote.
