The South Dakota Supreme Court has denied a request to invalidate 132 votes cast in Minnehaha County’s June 4 primary, one of several actions that a president of an election integrity group had hoped to see the court require from various state and local offices.
The court denied Jessica Pollema’s application for a writ of mandamus on Aug. 16, a little over a month after the South Dakota Canvassing Group president, along with District 11 candidate John Kunnari, had filed it.
In the filing, Pollema and Kunnari had claimed that respondents (including Secretary of State Monae Johnson, Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Daniel Haggar and Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson) had “engaged in insufficient efforts to ensure that the legal registered voters voted in this election. They alleged that they have “allowed, and continue to allow, violations of federal election laws, state election laws, the United States Constitution, and federal civil rights laws pertaining to voter rights.”
More: Election integrity group presents to sheriff in another attempt to prove voter fraud
While the canvassing group, which calls for a ban on things like electronic ballot counters, mail-in voting and ballot harvesting, has often been in opposition to Johnson and Haggar, the group is a strong supporter of Anderson. Anderson joined Pollema last week to present what she called evidence of voter fraud to Sheriff Mike Milstead.
The filing asked the court to require that Anderson’s office “revert to the unofficial vote count totals completed on June 4, 2024 without the 132 fraudulent ballots included in the vote totals for Minnehaha County precinct 04-16.”
That’s in reference to a challenge Pollema made during the primary, claiming that absentee ballots in two precincts were connected to voter registration forms with shared addresses at Sioux Falls post office boxes.
It’s a common, though at times, controversial practice, with people able to establish their residency in the state by spending a night here and filling out a form.
Pollema, however, has claimed that many of the forms are perjured — and successfully got a precinct board to reject 132 ballots from precinct 04-16.
More: Recount board opts to count 132 absentee ballots originally rejected in June 4 primary
Secretary of State officials, as well as Haggar, have said they believe that Pollema’s challenge fell outside of state law, which says that a challenge can only be made “as to the person’s identity as the person registered whom the person claims to be or on grounds that within 15 days preceding the election the person has been convicted of a felony or declared by proper authority to be mentally incompetent.”
The votes were eventually included while a recount board looked at three races on June 24.
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Publish date : 2024-08-21 06:56:00
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