Posted on 10/30/2004 7:25:12 PM PDT by dumpdaschle
Early voting probe started
A handful of Shannon County residents appear to have cast more than one ballot in South Dakota's first general election in which unrestricted early voting is allowed.
Fall River County State's Attorney Lance Russell said he is in the early stages of an investigation of multiple ballots cast by fewer than 10 voters.
"We do have a few people who have voted more than once," Russell said. "I have asked the auditor's office to put those in a pile. It is my intention to investigate it."
Shannon County, encompassed by Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, contracts for services with Fall River County, its neighbor to the west. Russell said he will have to turn the information over to federal investigators.
Russell said he could not release details about what information appears on the absentee ballots or related documents or about how the situation was detected.
South Dakota Secretary of State Chris Nelson said he was aware of the situation but could not say how the ballots in question might be handled as part of the election on Tuesday, Nov. 2.
"I've got to know the facts first," Nelson said.
If young men and women can fight and die for this country at the age of 18 than they should be able to vote for the people that are going to send them off to die!!!!
I am around high school and college kids all the time and they are very bright, talented, smart people who are very capable of making intelligent decisions.
Its supposed to a felony in any state. What we need is a simple $15k fine for each individual caught. Half of the money goes to the law enforcement agency who arrested the guy, and half to the folks who found the instance of dual voting. Instead of speed traps, we'd have voting traps...and we'd actually see people arrested in their driveway...and toted off to jail
In SD,if you vote absentee, you can either send a copy of your ID card, or have it notarized. If you have a notary in your pocket, you could vote twice.
Officially, the reason their votes were so late was because there they have to send their ballots to another county (Fall River?) before they can be counted. But, in reality, it was probably because they were still filling out enough votes to keep Liberal Tim Johnson in against Thune.
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