UPDATED: Aguilar admits to delivering UNMARKED ballots

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The hanging chad

UPDATE 2: If you watch today’s informational meeting (at beginning) you will see the city clerk give her ‘reasons’ as to what happened election day.

Just like clockwork, one of the local TV stations responded to blog posts by Jen Holsen and I. Aguilar reassures us she was only delivering unmarked ballots;

City Council Chair Sue Aguilar has drawn fire this week for delivering ballots to some voting centers.

Aguilar said she was dispatched to deliver blank ballots to both Whittier Middle School and Lincoln High School. She also went to Harvey Dunn to deliver tape for the machines.

“I didn’t have any contact with any of the marked ballots, the ballot boxes, or did I talk to any of the voters or any of that,” said Aguilar.

I will start by saying, with only a 14% turnout in a municipal election, it is unacceptable that any polling place ran out of ballots. The Litz-Hogstad-Chase-Gant team have proven to make this past election look like a botched elementary school science project. What if this would have been a presidential election? Florida all over again. I’ll give Gant and Litz a pass on this one (I don’t think either one of them know what is going on) but Hogstad who touted her years of experience in the clerk’s office as an assistant clerk should have handled the situation better. All I can say is that we should have never gotten rid of Debra Owen to begin with, and now there is one more mark on the chalk board of how dumb of a decision it was to terminate her.

While I thank Sue for wanting to help, she should not have. Hogstad could have summoned many other people to deliver unmarked ballots. Secondly, the assumption of impropriety is there.  I will admit, I never suspected anything illegal was done by Aguilar, but when your fellow councilors are up for re-election, you should probably stay as far away from polling places as possible except to vote.

Duh.

Interestingly, on election day, Kermit escorted his wife to the auditors office to pickup an absentee ballot for someone. When they saw Kermit they barked at him and told he wasn’t to be within 100 feet of the office. But the council chair? Apparently she has free reign.

UPDATED; Cory at Madville has an excellent post about this.

Sue Roust to be considered for interim city clerk but the SF YPN doesn’t really need her, they are taking this election on the road

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Looks like the former county auditor may be pulled out of retirement (Image: KELO-TV)

Item # 26

A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE APPOINTMENT OF SUE ROUST AS INTERIM CITY CLERK EFFECTIVE UPON PASSAGE AND PUBLICATION.

WHEREAS, Section 2.08 of the Charter of the City of Sioux Falls authorizes the City Council to appoint an officer of the City who shall have the title of Interim City Clerk;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD: That it approves the following City Council appointment:

Sue Roust, Interim City Clerk

Pursuant to SDCL 9-19-13, this Resolution is made in support of the municipal government and its existing public institutions, and shall become effective upon passage and publication.

This is sort of a relief. Sue is an excellent candidate to fill in as city clerk.

The first thing I would like Sue to check out (if she gets appointed) is these recommendations by the YPN (Young Professionals Network/a division of the SF Chamber) Steering committee;

While I think it should be easier to vote, I don’t think this should become a road show. Having 41 extra days to vote at the county courthouse before the election, is plenty of time. Besides, they are young professionals, with their carefree lifestyles, don’t they have time to cruise over in their Range Rovers to the courthouse and vote? Heck, most of them even work downtown. Here is a copy of the entire email: ypnsc

Dr. Kermit Staggers wrote a wonderful piece about Owen yesterday;

While power politics prevailed in this case, ultimately the integrity and courage of Owen won out. When given the final option of resigning or being fired, she refused to resign. After all, she had done nothing wrong. We need more people of integrity and class in city government such as Debra Owen, not fewer.

I would have to agree.

Congrats to Angie Buhl!

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A blogger finally made it to the state house;

There is no Republican on the ballot, which made Tuesday’s primary an all-or-nothing battle. Buhl will be the state’s youngest senator.

“Hard work really pays off,” Buhl said after taking 59 percent of the vote.

And it probably didn’t hurt that she spent $56 per vote.

Buhl was a strong fundraiser, too. She accepted $20,666 through May, mostly from political action committees, while Miles had about half as much money to work with.

In other election news, I was disappointed to see Litz get the Republican nomination for County Auditor;

As it stood Tuesday night, Litz received 4,500 votes, or 43 percent, compared to LaFollette’s 4,322, or 42 percent, and Mark Stevak’s 1,584.

Hopefully the Dems get behind Sue Nipe so we can keep Litz out of the auditor’s office. I think it is disingenuine of him to be running for another office while serving as a councilor. He should step down from the City Council while running for auditor, a county, not city position.

I was also surprised by Doogard kicking ass and taking names, and Munsterman coming in 2nd place. Howie’s second to last finish didn’t surprise me one bit. The Noem victory was no surprise at all, I actually predicted she would take 40% of the vote, and I was close. Steffy better be worried, Noem just isn’t a pretty face, she is smart businesswomen.

See all the state’s results here.

Brown wins and American voters continue the stupid F**king cycle

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t1main.scott.brown.victory.cnn

Boston, Massachusetts (CNN) — Republican Scott Brown won a major upset victory in Tuesday’s special election for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy.

With 89 percent of the results counted, Brown had 52 percent of the vote to 47 percent for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate, according to the the National Election Pool, a consortium of media organizations including CNN. Independent candidate Joseph Kennedy, a libertarian who is not related to the Kennedy political family of Massachusetts, had 1 percent.

I’m wondering when American voters are gonna wake up and realize the solution to our problems in this country do not lie in the hands of Republican or Democratic politicians. We aren’t happy with the Republicans so we elect a Democrat, we aren’t happy with the Democrats so we elect a Republican. Enough already, both parties are cut from the same cloth, they take special interest money from lobbyists and defend the special interests, they don’t care about you. It’s time that American voters started registering Indy and started electing Indy candidates. Fuck the two party system, it’s broken. Start electing people based on their values not on their political affiliation.

Making school board and municipal elections easier and more affordable to voters is a no-brainer

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Why has this idea taken so long to take off?

Business Manager Todd Vik said a proposed change in state law would let the district scrap precincts in favor of 10 or so voting centers, each of which would be open to all eligible voters. Networked electronic voting books at each polling place would ensure no one votes twice.

I have often wondered why we haven’t done all elections in the city like this? I know for a fact that city clerk Debra Owen has always pushed to make city elections more accessible and I think this is the time to implement such a program. There are many benefits to; you can still keep the paper ballot and you save money by having fewer precincts and you encourage voting. I have often been an advocate of holding elections on Saturdays and Sundays (A Bob Dole idea) but since that may never happen I think this is a great solution. I have often felt that the city fathers prefer making elections complicated that way fewer voters turnout to the polls, which benefits them. Remember, Mayor Munson was elected by fewer then 9% of Sioux Falls residents. Is that even democratic?