Richard Schriever didn’t win the Lennox City Council Ward 3 seat from incumbent Mike Gregg. But he did learn that he had all the more reason to call for replacing his city leaders. Schriever reports that his city council counted votes wrong for six years:
While attempting to vote today, I was informed by the City Finance Officer that the previous Finance Officer had failed to send updated voter registration information to the county and/or state in 2010 when ward boundaries had changed. That means that for the past six years, voting in Lennox city elections have been in error. Approximately three square blocks of voters have had their votes counted in the wrong ward—including mine. This is why I’m running for city council in Lennox. Sloppy, inconsistent, illegal governance, and the current council and mayor couldn’t care less [Richard Schriever, e-mail, 2016.04.12].
Six years, six elections pass before city officials notice that they’ve been counting voters in the wrong ward—that’s a pretty grave mistake. We can’t unwind and rerun elections from six years ago, but the Lennox City Council and the Secretary of State can canvass the old results to determine what effect if any this error may have had on who served on the council. They should definitely scrutinize this year’s results to make sure every ballot is counted in the right ward.
In a later conversation with the City Finance Officer, I was told that conversations with the Secretary of State’s Office informed the election board that they had no choice but to go with the registration list as provided by the county auditor – that provisional ballots would not be considered for those wrongly registered. So a few votes there (my most immediate neighbors and friends) evidently vanish into the ether.
Secondarily, the CFO reported, in a conversation with the Lincoln County Auditor’s office they (the County Auditor) took the blame. Evidently the city had sent in the boundary change information, but the County Auditor had not gotten around to recording it – or at least not all of it. Some had apparently been updated. Still sloppy – only at a higher level.
Even in yesterday’s election, Richard? Even when the error has been brought to light and it is clear that following the incorrect map disenfranchises several voters? No votes should vanish, not when we can verify that they were cast by real people who themselves followed all the rules for voting. Do you know how many votes are thrown out?
I don’t know how many for sure, but there were 5 people on my half-block committed to voting for me (myself included) and I know we were all affected.
This is the report I got from the C FO last night on the phone and I have not yet contacted the Lincoln County Auditor or SOS to get their side of it. Sorry, to be more a reacting candidate than a disciplined journalist at this point. Fuming.
The amount of incompetence in the handling of voting by governmental entities in SD is approaching mind boggling! Gerrymandering, making voting more difficult and switching polling places and problems gettig ballots counted nearly every election are just a few! Are our elections ever conducted and counted accurately anymore?
I heard back from the Lincoln County Auditor. The report was that 6 voters have been attributed to the wrong ward over the past 6 years.
This is odd indeed. This is one of the reasons we need to pay these county people more so we get qualified fellows and not just some local yokel off the street in a lifetime appointment. I am with Mr. Schriever.
Something similar happened in Alcester. After I handed in my petition for council member, I asked to view my petition after the signatures had verified, I notices at least three signatures were invalidated. I asked why, I was told they were in Ward II not Ward III by Finance Officer Pat Jurrens. I stated that was wrong. I confronted Mayor Tom Glas and the Alcester City Council on March 21, 2016, and nothing, I received no response. On April 4, 2016, I again raised the issue of Ward II/Ward III boundary citing 2014 Revised Municipal Ordinances. Councilman Mike Burke told me he talked to the former Finance officer and he was going believe him not me. Councilwoman Kama Johnson told me they were going by the map not the specific language. The map was not included in the Revised Municipal Ordinances of 2014 as stated in the ordinances. The map was the corporate boundary map with penciled in Wards, not a certified city ward map. This was the map the city sent down to the Union County Auditor as official. On Friday April 8th I confirmed that signatures on my petition were incorrectly placed in Ward II. The Union County Auditor place phone calls to the SD Secretary of State, the Alcester Finance Office and I believe the Union County Attorney’s office and it as determined the map was incorrect at 4:47 p.m. Monday April 11, corrected Ward III voter list was sent to Alcester Finance Officer Jurrens. Like Mr. Schriever I ran to correct errors in city governance and all the what I believe are improper executive sessions. See 04/13/2016 A Voice from the Gallery.
Richard, that mere disenfranchisement is enough to warrant protest, but I wonder: has any election in Ward 3 hinged on six votes or fewer?
And Vickie, Alcester, too? Two different counties, same error?
As I was arguing the point with the city attorney, another gentlemen who was present asked me, Gerrymandering? In my case, it feels like it. I sent an email to the Finance officer the day after the election asking what the count breakdown. I did not get an answer, so I will wait until the April 18th canvas. In Alcester it isn’t just the vote count, but the opportunity to vote absentee or even circulate the nominating petition. My complaint to the Union County Auditor and the efforts of the Union County auditor cured only one third (so-to-speak) of the defect. Voters on Park Avenue were telephoned on Monday but what of those who were time barred from absentee votes or a run for alderman. Alcester doesn’t have a city website, the only access to the ordinances or other Alcester City records for the public is the Alcester Finance Office. There is an unofficial copy of the ordinances in the Alcester City-School Library because I FOIA’d for a true copy of the Revised Municipal Ordinances 2014 from the Alcester City Finance Officer, paid for them, photocopied what I was given and gave it to the Library. I fully intend to raise the question to the three feasance brothers: mal, mis and non.
Keep after them, Vickie! I assume those voters would have gotten incorrect information if they had used the Secretary of State’s Vote 605 App, since the locals had submitted the wrong information?
I would make that assumption based on the domino theory. The city provided bad information to the county so the county believing the information to be correct would have forwarded that information to the state for dissemination. I have heard judges use the term, ‘harmless error’ and here we have a circumstance where it wasn’t so harmless. Voters were deprived of their right to vote (which albeit was corrected last minute), time barred from absentee vote and time barred from a run for office. At this point I cannot say how long these voters were disenfranchised from Ward III, too many years have gone without people running for office in our Wards. Aldermen have been appointed, re-appointed and retained to the point last year when both Ward III aldermen failed to take out petitions and were kept in their seats via what I call the sufferance statute where they were allow to be seated until someone volunteered for the position. At that time I did volunteer, but was rejected presumably because I would not agree to the conditions dictated by the finance officer and one councilman that I not report on negative things that happen, that I would only talk about positive things.
Last night at the canvassing of ballots, the Alcester Finance Officer Pat Jurrens announced that 16 ballots allegedly from the curbside recycling issue had not been counted. According to the Finance Officer Jurrens the 16 ballots had been clipped together and set aside. Curiously this was the same number of votes I had received in Ward III for Council position. These ballots were not counted nor where they placed back into the ballot box and sealed and they sat overnight presumably in the Alcester Finance Office unsecured. According to Alcester Finance Officer Jurrens, the 16 orphan unsecured ballots were discovered Wednesday morning, ultimately the South Dakota Secretary of State was consulted and the Alcester Finance Office was advised the ballots were invalid. So my question is I had 16 votes, 16 ballots were invalidated because they were not secured, what happens now if those ballots were Ward III and were for me?