Officials: Ballots only altered to make them readable

Aberdeen American News (hometown paper of Senate minority leader Daschle) ^ | AP

[jwalburg]

SIOUX FALLS - It is not uncommon for election workers to make duplicate ballots if the original cannot be read by machines, said elections supervisor and Secretary of State-elect Chris Nelson.

His comments came amid reports that election workers in Shannon County darkened marks on ballots because voters wrote too lightly in Tuesday's election.

But Nelson said there is a procedure for dealing with cases where ballots were not adequately marked by voters. In such cases, a resolution board creates a duplicate ballot that was marked the same way as the original, but done in a way that it can be scanned by machines, Nelson said.

Nelson said he did not know specifically what happened in Shannon County, but it would only be a problem if workers were not making duplicate ballots.

''If they were darkening the marks on existing ballots and not making a duplicate, that's greatly troublesome,'' he said. ''We want to preserve that original in the exact fashion that the voter marked it so if there's any question ... it can be reviewed.''

Renee Dross, election clerk for Fall River County, which handles elections for Shannon County, said there was nothing unusual about what election workers did and that duplicate ballots were made. Such cases come up in all elections, she said.

''It really wasn't a big deal,'' Dross said.

[jwalburg]

Uh oh.

[Cicero]

I trust Thune will not concede.

[ambrose]

check this out

[lelio]

If you can't darken in a circle properly I think you have no business deciding who should lead the nation.

[ambrose]

Needless to say, all hell would be breaking loose now if senate control hinged on this seat. As it stands, I expect Thune to quietly concede and wait to take on Daschle in 2004.

[Otta B Sleepin]

I trust Thune will not concede

He said he's waiting to see if there were any voting irregularities before deciding whether or not to ask for a recount.

[Libertina]

Here in Washington State we use an nifty invention called a felt marking pen. Amazing how that SHOWS UP the FIRST TIME!!!!

[MHGinTN]

I suspect Thune has more integrity than the average (gingrich type) politician. If he quietly concedes with blatant fraud coming out (and it is, with some counties having more votes than census population in SD), he will have allowed the disenfranchisemnet of legitimate voters who actually took the trouble to do their sovereign duty! That cannot be ignored any longer.

[JohnHuang2]

Vote fraud, plain and simple.

[homeschool mama]

ping

[Oregon Coast Conservative]

I hope the reps are calling all the people on the voters sign-in to make sure they really exist. Shannon county went for Bush big in 2000, and huge for Johnson yesterday.

[Oregon Coast Conservative]

oops, wrong county, Shannon county went big for Gore ( I think I need sleep:)

[Born to be Wild]

This is part of the "clarifications" made to many ballots on Native American Reservations in SD, heavily dem.

[Katya]

Typical.....let's hope the republicans don't fall back on being nicey nicey, and decide moving on is just more civil.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list