While some of Litz’s and Gant’s missteps Tuesday Night (Wednesday morning) are solely their fault, there were other factors involved. Mostly the machines were not working properly, as promised by ESS&S. They are just too hyper sensitive, and the absentee votes should be counted last, not first. Also state law needs to change so that counties can count them in advance.
I also think the musical precincts are affecting the high number of absentee voters. I haven’t voted on election day at my precinct in years, I always absentee because I got sick of the stupid guessing game.
I will hopefully have an updated post about this later today from someone who assisted with the vote tabulation.
State law currently allows absentee ballots to be tabulated before the polls close, as long as the results are not released. SDCL 12-19-43, passed in 2005.
I’m not aware of any law that says once you start counting absentees, you can’t stop and count precinct ballots instead. I think Bob should be asked to provide the statute, since he’s using this as an excuse for the slow counting. (front page of AL today)
That’s interesting, because Bob has claimed that the AG and the SOS told him he could not. Rapid City also got in trouble for doing it. Seems to be some confusion. Of course taking legal advice from those two is kinda a crap shoot.
Litz should resign. Not because of the delay in counting votes but because wrong ballots were distributed again this election. That’s four in a row. My 6 year old is a nice person but she is not qualified to be Auditor. Neither is Bob.
Well if the Democrats would have gotten off their asses and raised some money for Tony and campaigned for him, we would have a new auditor. This should have been a slam dunk office for them to win.
perhaps it’s time to make county auditor a non political position. what else is screwed up in that office?
I rarely agree with the AL, but they were spot-on with this one. Litz said he didn’t want to play the blame game and would take his lumps, but that was after he blamed machines, rules, mac ‘n cheese spills, pen/pencil drifting and other stuff.
I would agree, they should be hired by the County Commission.
I don’t often find myself agreeing with Rick Knobe and Todd Epp, but today they interviewed Bob Litz and a member of the Resolution Board, Bruce Danielson and concluded all the explaining they tried to do made little sense!
Ever since Sue Roust left and Bob Litz took over all we hear EVERY election is excuses, excuses, excuses.
This time around the $217,000 that was invested in new tabulating machines was supposed to have things running smoothly……..
At the same time this fiasco was taking place, Bob Litz was being RE-ELECTED with 65% of the vote (Litz 30,803, Bartholomaus 16,906). BTW, after listening to Knobe interview Bartholomaus several weeks ago, he was no more qualified for this position than Builder Bob.
Litz has a whole lot of explaining to do to the County Commissioners and to the public and what he came up with today on the radio isn’t going to wash esp. with the public.
Well this is just too funny, the Argus asks Litz to resign. Who knew the Argus even had a back bone? They have kept it carefully hidden for so many years.
I figured he would lay low and screw up an election that would benefit mmm then litz would have his forever job. Leave him in as auditor and strip his power. Otherwise he’ll be another on the welfare rolls. Poof goof he needs a job. Sure Walmart could use him to decide where to put more stores but addresses keep escaping him. Must be an Einstein thing too intelligent. NOT
This would have been the easiest election for the Dems to win with little effort just with the cluster crap that has taken place on Litz’s watch in the past.
Litz is in no way qualified for this position. He ran on name recognition and collects a deperately needed paycheck.
Seriously – if Curious George would have been on the ballot – I would have colored that oval, however, I am a Republican and voted for Tony knowing absolutely nothing about him. Why? Because anyone, including a cartoon character, would be better than what we currently have.
Same here Karma