South Dakota
In a rare step, 3 South Dakota counties are set to vote on counting ballots by hand
Voters in at least three rural South Dakota counties are set to decide Tuesday whether to return to counting ballots by hand, the latest communities around the country to consider ditching machine tabulators based on unfounded conspiracy theories stemming from the 2020 presidential election.
The three counties, each with fewer than 6,000 residents, would be among the first in the U.S. to require old-school hand counts, which long ago were replaced by ballot tabulators in most of the country.
A number of other states and local governments have considered banning machine counting since the 2020 election, but most of those efforts have sputtered over concerns of cost, the time it takes to count by hand and the difficulty of hiring more staff to do it.
Experts say counting the votes by hand is less accurate that machine tabulation.
Supporters of the South Dakota effort aren’t deterred by such worries.
“We believe that a decentralized approach to the elections is much more secure, much more transparent, and that the citizens should have oversight over their elections,” said Jessica Pollema, president of SD Canvassing, a citizen group supporting the change.
Like efforts elsewhere, the South Dakota push for hand counting has its origins in false claims pushed by former President Donald Trump and his allies after the 2020 presidential election. They made claims of widespread voter fraud and spread conspiracy theories that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election. There has been no evidence to support such claims, but they have become embedded in many places that voted heavily for Trump.
What to know about the 2024 Election
The citizen initiatives in South Dakota to prohibit tabulating machines are set to appear on Tuesday’s primary ballot in Gregory, Haakon and Tripp counties. Similar petition efforts for future measure votes are underway in more than 40 other counties in the conservative state, Pollema said. At least four counties have rejected attempts to force hand counting.
Earlier, the Fall River County Commission voted in February to count ballots by hand for the June election, and Tripp County counted its general election ballots by hand in 2022.
If the measure passes Tuesday, Gregory County Auditor Julie Bartling said the county will have to increase the number of precincts to lessen the burden of hand counting. That will force it to buy more assisted voting devices for disabled voters. The county also will face the difficult task of hiring more election workers.
Bartling, who runs elections in the county, opposes the initiative and said she has “full faith in the automated tabulators.”
Todd and Tripp County Auditor Barb DeSersa said she also opposes attempts to require hand counting of all ballots because the process isn’t as accurate. She said the 2022 hand count left election workers exhausted.
“I know the ones that have done it the last time didn’t want nothing to do with it this time, so I think once they do it once or twice, they’ll get tired of it, and it’ll be harder to find people to volunteer to do that,” DeSersa said.
DeSersa’s office estimated it would cost $17,000 to $25,000 for elections in Tripp County to be counted by hand, compared to about $19,000 to $21,000 using tabulators. Haakon County Auditor Stacy Pinney said she initially estimated hand counting will cost between $750 and $4,500, but “overall, an election cost is hard to determine at this point.”
According to a state attorney’s analysis for Haakon County, it would take two election workers using a tabulator three to four hours to count all the ballots. It would take 15 to 20 election workers between five and 15 hours to do a hand count, depending on the number of contested races.
The three counties have a combined 7,725 active registered voters, according to a statewide report.
Republican state Rep. Rocky Blare, who lives in Tripp County, said he will vote against the measure.
“They can’t prove to me that there’s been any issues that I think have affected our election in South Dakota,” Blare said.
Secretary of State Monae Johnson, a Republican, expressed confidence in tabulating machines, noting they have been used for years. In a statement, she pointed to “safeguards built in throughout the process and the post-election audit on the machines after the primary and general election to ensure they are working properly.”
The June election will be the first with a post-election audit, a process included in a 2023 state law. It involves hand counting all the votes in two races from 5% of precincts in every county to ensure the machine tabulation is accurate. Johnson’s office said there was no evidence of any widespread problems in 2020 or 2022. One person voted twice, she said, and was caught.
After repeated attacks against machine-counting of ballots in the 2020 presidential election, Dominion Voting Systems last year reached a $787 million settlement in a defamation case against Fox News over false claims the network repeatedly aired. The judge in that case found it was “CRYSTAL clear” none of the claims about Dominion’s machines was true, and testimony showed many Fox hosts quietly doubted the claims their network was airing.
Since 2020, only a few counties have made the switch to hand counting. In California, officials in Shasta County voted to get rid of their ballot tabulators, but state lawmakers later restricted hand counts to limited circumstances. Officials in Arizona’s Mohave County rejected a proposal to hand count ballots in 2023, citing the $1.1 million cost.
David Levine, a former local election official in Idaho who is now a senior fellow with the Alliance for Securing Democracy, said research has shown hand counting large numbers of ballots is more costly, less accurate and takes more time than machine tabulators.
“If you listen to conspiracy theorists and election skeptics throughout the U.S., one reason the 2020 election was illegitimate was because of an algorithm. Hence, if you take computers out of the voting process, you’ll have a more secure election,” Levine said. “The only problem: it’s not true.”
While some areas do count ballots by hand, mainly in the Northeast, it typically happens in places with a small number of registered voters. Hand counts are common during post-election tests to check that machines are counting ballots correctly, but only a small portion of the ballots are manually checked.
Election experts say it’s unrealistic to think workers in large jurisdictions, with tens or hundreds of thousands of voters, could count all their ballots by hand and report results quickly, especially since ballots often include multiple races.
“The issue is that people aren’t very good at large, tedious, repetitive tasks like counting ballots, and computers are,” Levine said. “Those who believe otherwise are either unaware of this reality or choose to ignore it.”
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Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota. Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed to this story.
Definition of a Buck Deer and Bull Elk Antler
The Commission finalized a clean-up to remove “polished antler” and replace with “antler” from the definition of a buck and bull to allow an individual to harvest a velvet antlered deer or elk.
Spring and Fall Turkey Seasons
The Commission made several changes to the spring and fall turkey seasons.
For the Spring Turkey Season, references to federal property closures were removed from administrative rule and the Day and Codington County combined unit was separated into county specific units for Day (PST-22A) and Codington (PST-05A) counties.
Changes to the Fall Turkey Season include a weapons restriction change allowing for the use of rifles or shotguns for hunting turkeys in the fall for all units, except for Minnehaha County. In addition, the changes to fall turkey unit boundaries will result in the same Spring and Fall turkey unit boundaries for all units, except for the Black Hills.
The Commission closed Bennett and Sanborn counties to spring firearm turkey hunting. The Commission closed Gregory and Mellette counties to fall turkey hunting and opened Hughes County. All spring and fall turkey hunting season unit license numbers were finalized.
Tagging and Transportation of Shooting Preserve Harvested Pheasants
The Commission adopted additional allowances for the transportation of harvested birds from a private shooting preserve directly to a lodge or cleaning facility not located on permitted acres prior to tagging. This finalization is the result of a public petition.
PROPOSALS
Aquatic Invasive Species Regulations
The Commission proposed to add golden mussels to the current list of Aquatic Invasive Species. Currently, golden mussels have established populations in western North America and are spreading east. They have similar effects as zebra mussels. They are not in South Dakota at this time.
The Commission also proposed to exclude phragmites species from types of vegetation that can be used as blind material on boats when being launched or trailered. Phragmites could be used as blind material, but cannot be transported from the waterbody.
Bait Regulations
The Commission proposed to remove the requirement to submit an annual summary of bait harvested for resident bait dealers. Resident bait dealers who trap their own bait would still be required to maintain daily records of bait trapped.
Muskellunge Limits
The Commission proposed to modify the daily and possession limit of muskellunge and northern-muskellunge (tiger) cross from catch and release to 1 daily, 2 in possession with a 45-inch minimum length limit for inland waters.
Fishing Tournaments
The Commission proposed to modify the dates when a fishing tournament cannot occur to clarify fishing tournaments cannot occur on the Friday of the 4th of July weekend, if the 4th falls on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday.
Fish Pathogens
The Commission proposed to update the list of fish pathogens of regulatory concern used for fish importation permit requirements. This change would reduce the regulatory burden on importers and suppliers by reducing the number of pathogens that must be tested for. The proposed changes reflect current fish health standards and disease risk assessments while maintaining safeguards to prevent the introduction of significant fish pathogens into South Dakota waters.
Paddlefish Transportation
The Commission proposed to modify the transportation requirements for paddlefish harvested during the archery season below Gavins Point Dam to allow for harvested paddlefish to be cleaned, including removal of the head, skin and tail, prior to transport.
Bobcat Hunting Season
The Commission proposed the 2026-2027 and 2027-2028 Bobcat Hunting Season with no recommended changes to administrative rule from past years. With no changes to rule, the current season structure will be retained.
Endangered and Threatened Species
The Commission proposed to remove the Eskimo curlew and Least tern from the list of
endangered birds.
The Eskimo curlew is believed to be extinct throughout its range. The last confirmed
observation occurred in Barbados in 1963, and there are no records of the species in the South Dakota Nongame Conservation Database.
The Least tern was removed from the Federal List of Threatened and Endangered Species in 2021. In South Dakota, Least terns have been monitored annually for more than 30 years, and recovery criteria have been met for multiple consecutive years, including the most recent monitoring period.
Public Comments Being Accepted
To hear the discussion on these topics, audio from the meeting is available through South Dakota Public Broadcasting and will soon be available on the GFP website as part of the meeting archive.
To see these topics in their entirety, visit gfp.sd.gov/commission/information.
To be included in the public record and to be considered by the Commission, comments must include a full name and city of residence and be submitted by 11:59 p.m. CDT on Sept. 6.
The next GFP Commission meeting will be held in Winner, September 10-11.
South Dakota
MN officials warn dogs adopted from South Dakota show ‘high prevalence of canine brucellosis’
Image on the left shows a dog waiting for adoption in a shelter (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images). image on the right shows an optical microscope view of bacterium brucella canis causes brucellosis (Photo by: BSIP/Education Images/Un (Getty Images)
The Minnesota Board of Animal Health is warning that some dogs adopted from South Dakota are testing positive for canine brucellosis, a contagious and uncurable infection.
Dogs from South Dakota carrying canine brucellosis
By the numbers:
State officials say that so far in 2026, there have been seven canine brucellosis positive dogs traced to South Dakota.
What they’re saying:
Companion Animal Program Veterinarian Dr. Steve Kivisto shared the following statement on the matter.
“We’re evaluating new import requirements and quarantine procedures for dogs coming into Minnesota from South Dakota due to a high prevalence of canine brucellosis in dogs rescued from that geographic area in the past few years,” said companion animal program veterinarian Dr. Steve Kivisto. “We’ve also had recent cases imported from other states and will consider additional requirements if those also prove to contain a pattern of canine brucellosis.”
Dig deeper:
Canine brucellosis is an infection that primarily affects dogs, but there are strains capable of infecting other species, including humans.
The infection in dogs is not curable, and should an owner choose to attempt treatment, their pet could still continue to shed the bacteria. Infected dogs would either need to be quarantined for life or humanely euthanized to prevent the spread.
People who live with or work closely with animals are also at risk of contracting brucellosis.
What you can do:
Officials say anyone bringing dogs into Minnesota for resale or adoption must have a veterinarian examine the animal and sign off on a certificate of veterinary inspection certifying that it appears free from disease.
Testing is also highly recommended since infected dogs can appear healthy.
The Source: This story uses information shared by the Minnesota Board of Animal Health.
A Tyrannosaurus rex fossil discovered on a ranch in western South Dakota will be auctioned off in New York City on Tuesday with a possible sale price of $30 million or more.
The 38-foot long skeleton, nicknamed Gus, stands more than 12 feet tall and has one of the most complete T. rex skeletons ever found. According to Sotheby’s auction house, which is handling the sale, Gus could bring the highest sale price ever for a dinosaur fossil.
The dinosaur is from the late Cretaceous Period and was believed to have lived on Earth 67 million years ago.
The Harding County ranch where the skeleton was found lies in the famed Hell Creek Formation, a geological region of northwestern South Dakota and parts of Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming where dinosaur finds are fairly common.
Several other major dinosaur finds have been made there, including Sue, the famous T. rex discovered in 1990. After legal wrangling over ownership, Sue was auctioned in 1997 at a sale price of $8.3 million to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where it remains today.
(Photo: Malcolm Ritter)
The first piece of Gus, a metatarsal from the dinosaur’s foot, was found in 2021 sticking out of the ground on a Harding County ranch owned by Gary and Dana Licking. The find was made by paleontologists with Theropoda Expeditions, a Texas company specializing in commercial excavation, preparation and mounting of dinosaur fossils.
The fossil consists of 183 bone elements, making up 61% of the possible bones in the dinosaur’s body and representing 75% to 80% of the original bone mass by weight, Sotheby’s said.
The dinosaur Sue is 40 feet long and 13 feet tall and is considered the largest and most complete T. rex skeleton ever discovered at 90% of possible bone mass.
“This is our longest-term project ever,” Cassandra Hatton, worldwide head of Sotheby’s Science & Natural History division, said in the video. “From the day the first bone was discovered, we’ve been going back and forth to South Dakota to oversee this whole process.”
The lowest opening bid accepted will be $19 million, with an estimated sale price up to $30 million or more depending on buyer interest, Sotheby’s said.
Gus is named after rancher Gary Licking, whose nickname was Gus. Licking died at age 67 in February 2022, before the full extent of the T. rex skeleton was known.
Gary and Dana Licking married in 1983 and lived on their family ranch 11 miles west of Buffalo, according to Gary’s obituary.
Dana Licking said in Sotheby’s video that she was impressed at the level of skill and professionalism displayed by the paleontologists who discovered the skeleton.
“I’m really grateful that they found it because it could have been lost and nobody ever would learn anything about it,” she said.
Walter Stein, owner of PaleoAdventures in Belle Fourche, in western South Dakota, is an independent paleontologist who is also working to uncover fossils in the Hell Creek Formation.
Western South Dakota is likely to remain a hotbed for discovery of dinosaur fossils, said Stein, who last year opened the Dinosaurs of the Hell Creek Museum in Belle Fourche, a 6,500 square-foot museum with a working paleontology lab, interactive exhibits and dinosaur displays.
“Finding a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton with 183 bones doesn’t happen every day,” he said.
Stein said the auction of Gus could lead to a purchase by either a museum or a private individual or group.
But it is unlikely an American museum would have the funding to acquire Gus because many are struggling or struggling financially, Stein said. Across the world, however, interest remains high in major fossils in countries where funding may be more accessible, such as in Japan, Korea, China, Dubai, Saudi Arabia or in Europe, Stein said.
“On the one hand, I would love for this and every fossil I collect to go to a museum,” he said. “However, there’s so many dinosaur specimens and skeletons on display, it’s not going to affect the science that much if it ends up in private hands.”
— This story originally published on southdakotanewswatch.org.
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