Perhaps MMM will fall on his sword and make a “The Buck Stops Here” proclamation that he takes full responsibility for such an oversight in the administration of a municipal election.
This is a nightmare – but thankfully it sounds as if it wasn’t just Dunn’s name left off, but instead it was both her AND Erpenbach. Can you imagine the mess it would be if only one of the two was listed?
Could it be that the wrong ballots were sent to those voters? If there was an error where they weren’t given the ballot for the Central District then this would make more sense. Thus it isn’t the ballot itself was printed incorrectly – it is more likely they were simply given the wrong ballots. Either way, any mistake involving elections is huge, so let’s hope they can get it straightened out.
BTW Sullivan – why would the Mayor take responsibility for something that is being managed by the Minnehaha County Auditor?
Read today’s piece in the AL: Wrong Absentee Ballots Sent to 3 Voters.
REALLY, Minnehaha County Auditor Litz, ONLY THREE VOTERS rec’d the wrong ballot, and just how would you be able to prove that statement?
Then Litz tries to shift the focus to council candidate Dunn by implicating she was wrong to try to help out two constituents who rec’d those wrong ballots.
No surprises here, this guy demonstrated the same incompetence as a City Councilor. The next time he comes up for re-election remember this!!
Rebecca Dunn blew the whistle on invalid ballots being sent out by Litz’s office. I don’t understand Litz’s statement in the Argus or why Dunn needs to be investigated. For what? Showing an invalid ballot to Litz so he would correct his ballot blunders? There’s no hanky panky, just Litz’s blunders.
Thank goodness Rebecca Dunn did the right thing and blew the whistle for all of us voters to double check our ballots.
If there were three ballots caught that were invalid, there could be 300 out there in people’s mailboxes.
Anon, the law states; “Candidates and election officials not to serve as authorized messenger.”
While we can contend that Dunn should have not brought the ballot in herself, according to law, it is important to remember, the ballot she returned was BLANK and NOT MARKED, something left out of the Argus story.
I can totally understand if Dunn brought in a marked ballot, BUT SHE DID NOT. An unmarked ballot is invalid, and has no basis to this law, it wouldn’t be any different if Dunn brought in a ballot that was blowing across the street that was not marked.
She did the right thing by showing the mistake that had been made, and if they want to press charges, let them have at it. They will lose. The mistake made here was directly done in the auditors office, and anyone should be filing election complaints, they should be directed towards Mr. Litz and his staff, not Ms. Dunn.
l3wise, you’re right on the money! It was an invalid ballot … a worthless piece of paper. Litz’s fast and loose interpretation of the law does not apply in this case unless a prosecutor wishes to apply the most petty and vindictive application of the law. And if the prosecutor wants to be laughed hysterically out of the courtroom.
I thought Litz was a standup kinda guy until this, and maybe the sloppy writer at the Argus took him out of context as is habitual with the Argus writing staff these days. It’s interesting to note Litz didn’t say he was looking into the issue, but that some unnamed person (The state’s attorney? The city clerk? His pal Pat Powers? His pal Jason Gant? The Man in the Moon?).
Translation: “Let’s not talk about my reckless oversight which resulted in three known cases of ballot blunders. Let’s talk about the whistleblower and how she brought my blunder to our attention.”
A competent reporter would have gotten that name or would have dismissed Litz’s comment as an empty and childish threat … or maybe the reporter has a bias here. Hmmmm.
Rebecca asked for my assistance the other day in finding out what happened. I was a witness to part of this process.
There is going to be a lot of back and forth between all the governmental participants. I will tell you, the local paper of record did not do Rebecca Dunn justice in this matter.
Why does the messenger always have to be destroyed by the powerful when wrongs are pointed out.
There is absolutely no fault by Rebecca Dunn. She was asked by a gravely ill longtime friend, neighbor and supporter to correct a problem. She did and she did it right. How many of you would know all the exact steps to correct an injustice?
Armchair quarterbacks, what a bunch….
We should be celebrating the actions taken by a principled, driven person to do the right thing, I know I do.
I witnessed most of Rebecca’s actions in this process. I wonder what her opponent would have done? Rebecca said the Vote is Sacred, all of them. To those who say, “Well it was only three. I say, let one of those three be your vote, your ballot.
Rebecca could have blamed Bob Litz and his office but she didn’t. She worked with them, got the issue corrected and asked the office to make sure no one else was going to be disenfranchised by clerical errors.
She wanted to make sure the Southeast and Central District ballots were properly reviewed by the voters before sending them back filled in. It will be interesting to see how many rejects will happen when being processed by the election night counters.
If your candidate does not win on election night, look for the unusual under counts, you may figure out why.
Rebecca Dunn did what she is well known for, took thoughtful proper action, just the kind she will when on the council.
Nice intimidation tactic Bozo Bob! “I’m not sure about candidates running around taking ballots out of people’s houses,†Litz said. “That’s being looked at, too, and not by me.â€
Dunn needs to be at the county commissioner meeting Tuesday and ask exactly what investigation she is under. Then ask for Blitz to step down as election officer.
I have been planning on voting for Rebecca Dunn for the Central District council seat.
Now, based on comments made here, I question her judgment in seeking assistance from a private citizen regarding this issue rather than going straight to the County Commission who oversees Minnehaha County Auditor, Bob Litz.
Central District Resident, Rebecca Dunn nothing wrong in this process. She was not candidate on the ballot. Bob Litz handled the valid ballot, Dunn never touched anyone’s legitimate ballot.
Rebecca Dunn was straight arrow in this process. She threw no one under the bus in a blame game. She was asked by a long time supporter to assist in cleaning up a problem and she did.
Remember, she also made her opponent’s supporters aware of the issue so they could vote properly.
Dunn shouldn’t be the focus here – it wasn’t her error. Hopefully the voters are paying attention and realizing she is the type who takes action and that she delivers on her promises.
Either way, mistakes were made by someone other than Dunn. Let’s not let that fact be overshadowed here. Whether it was the city clerk or the Minnehaha County Auditor, someone messed up – and it wasn’t the only mistake made during this election.
Just once I’d like to hear someone take responsibility for their screwups rather than trying to shift blame or minimize the impact. Do I believe this was intentional? No. However I also have a hard time believing it was only three ballots and how would they know either way?
At this point I just hope the elections aren’t close enough to where an issue like this would have an impact either way. Because if you end up with an election decided by 30 or 40 votes you know there are going to be issues and accusations. We really don’t need that.
How do you spell INCOMPETENCE!!?
Isn’t this a major responsibility of people administering elections, to proofread a ballot before printing?????
Perhaps MMM will fall on his sword and make a “The Buck Stops Here” proclamation that he takes full responsibility for such an oversight in the administration of a municipal election.
Then again: nah.
This is a nightmare – but thankfully it sounds as if it wasn’t just Dunn’s name left off, but instead it was both her AND Erpenbach. Can you imagine the mess it would be if only one of the two was listed?
Could it be that the wrong ballots were sent to those voters? If there was an error where they weren’t given the ballot for the Central District then this would make more sense. Thus it isn’t the ballot itself was printed incorrectly – it is more likely they were simply given the wrong ballots. Either way, any mistake involving elections is huge, so let’s hope they can get it straightened out.
BTW Sullivan – why would the Mayor take responsibility for something that is being managed by the Minnehaha County Auditor?
Voters,
Read today’s piece in the AL: Wrong Absentee Ballots Sent to 3 Voters.
REALLY, Minnehaha County Auditor Litz, ONLY THREE VOTERS rec’d the wrong ballot, and just how would you be able to prove that statement?
Then Litz tries to shift the focus to council candidate Dunn by implicating she was wrong to try to help out two constituents who rec’d those wrong ballots.
No surprises here, this guy demonstrated the same incompetence as a City Councilor. The next time he comes up for re-election remember this!!
Love how Blitz says Dunn is in trouble for tampering with a ballot.
Rebecca Dunn blew the whistle on invalid ballots being sent out by Litz’s office. I don’t understand Litz’s statement in the Argus or why Dunn needs to be investigated. For what? Showing an invalid ballot to Litz so he would correct his ballot blunders? There’s no hanky panky, just Litz’s blunders.
Thank goodness Rebecca Dunn did the right thing and blew the whistle for all of us voters to double check our ballots.
If there were three ballots caught that were invalid, there could be 300 out there in people’s mailboxes.
It’s against the law for a candidate to handle absentee ballots (SDCL 12-19-7.1).
Anon, the law states; “Candidates and election officials not to serve as authorized messenger.”
While we can contend that Dunn should have not brought the ballot in herself, according to law, it is important to remember, the ballot she returned was BLANK and NOT MARKED, something left out of the Argus story.
I can totally understand if Dunn brought in a marked ballot, BUT SHE DID NOT. An unmarked ballot is invalid, and has no basis to this law, it wouldn’t be any different if Dunn brought in a ballot that was blowing across the street that was not marked.
She did the right thing by showing the mistake that had been made, and if they want to press charges, let them have at it. They will lose. The mistake made here was directly done in the auditors office, and anyone should be filing election complaints, they should be directed towards Mr. Litz and his staff, not Ms. Dunn.
l3wise, you’re right on the money! It was an invalid ballot … a worthless piece of paper. Litz’s fast and loose interpretation of the law does not apply in this case unless a prosecutor wishes to apply the most petty and vindictive application of the law. And if the prosecutor wants to be laughed hysterically out of the courtroom.
I thought Litz was a standup kinda guy until this, and maybe the sloppy writer at the Argus took him out of context as is habitual with the Argus writing staff these days. It’s interesting to note Litz didn’t say he was looking into the issue, but that some unnamed person (The state’s attorney? The city clerk? His pal Pat Powers? His pal Jason Gant? The Man in the Moon?).
Translation: “Let’s not talk about my reckless oversight which resulted in three known cases of ballot blunders. Let’s talk about the whistleblower and how she brought my blunder to our attention.”
A competent reporter would have gotten that name or would have dismissed Litz’s comment as an empty and childish threat … or maybe the reporter has a bias here. Hmmmm.
Rebecca asked for my assistance the other day in finding out what happened. I was a witness to part of this process.
There is going to be a lot of back and forth between all the governmental participants. I will tell you, the local paper of record did not do Rebecca Dunn justice in this matter.
Why does the messenger always have to be destroyed by the powerful when wrongs are pointed out.
There is absolutely no fault by Rebecca Dunn. She was asked by a gravely ill longtime friend, neighbor and supporter to correct a problem. She did and she did it right. How many of you would know all the exact steps to correct an injustice?
Armchair quarterbacks, what a bunch….
We should be celebrating the actions taken by a principled, driven person to do the right thing, I know I do.
I witnessed most of Rebecca’s actions in this process. I wonder what her opponent would have done? Rebecca said the Vote is Sacred, all of them. To those who say, “Well it was only three. I say, let one of those three be your vote, your ballot.
Rebecca could have blamed Bob Litz and his office but she didn’t. She worked with them, got the issue corrected and asked the office to make sure no one else was going to be disenfranchised by clerical errors.
She wanted to make sure the Southeast and Central District ballots were properly reviewed by the voters before sending them back filled in. It will be interesting to see how many rejects will happen when being processed by the election night counters.
If your candidate does not win on election night, look for the unusual under counts, you may figure out why.
Rebecca Dunn did what she is well known for, took thoughtful proper action, just the kind she will when on the council.
Armchair quarterbacks, what a bunch….
Nice intimidation tactic Bozo Bob! “I’m not sure about candidates running around taking ballots out of people’s houses,†Litz said. “That’s being looked at, too, and not by me.â€
perhaps litz is having erpbucket look into it.
Dunn needs to be at the county commissioner meeting Tuesday and ask exactly what investigation she is under. Then ask for Blitz to step down as election officer.
I have been planning on voting for Rebecca Dunn for the Central District council seat.
Now, based on comments made here, I question her judgment in seeking assistance from a private citizen regarding this issue rather than going straight to the County Commission who oversees Minnehaha County Auditor, Bob Litz.
John’s right. Litz has a conflict. He blames Dunn, but it’s his own ballot blunder that’s at fault. He has proven to be a bad actor here. He must go.
Does he have a link to Dunn’s opponent?
Central District Resident, Rebecca Dunn nothing wrong in this process. She was not candidate on the ballot. Bob Litz handled the valid ballot, Dunn never touched anyone’s legitimate ballot.
Rebecca Dunn was straight arrow in this process. She threw no one under the bus in a blame game. She was asked by a long time supporter to assist in cleaning up a problem and she did.
Remember, she also made her opponent’s supporters aware of the issue so they could vote properly.
Dunn shouldn’t be the focus here – it wasn’t her error. Hopefully the voters are paying attention and realizing she is the type who takes action and that she delivers on her promises.
Either way, mistakes were made by someone other than Dunn. Let’s not let that fact be overshadowed here. Whether it was the city clerk or the Minnehaha County Auditor, someone messed up – and it wasn’t the only mistake made during this election.
Just once I’d like to hear someone take responsibility for their screwups rather than trying to shift blame or minimize the impact. Do I believe this was intentional? No. However I also have a hard time believing it was only three ballots and how would they know either way?
At this point I just hope the elections aren’t close enough to where an issue like this would have an impact either way. Because if you end up with an election decided by 30 or 40 votes you know there are going to be issues and accusations. We really don’t need that.