Election canvass sparks discussion among Lincoln County Commissioners

The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners met Thursday, June 4. Commissioners heard agenda items including the county canvass, post election audit drawing, and request for proposals for indigent defense services. 

Auditor, Sheri Lund was present for the County Canvas of the June 2, 2026, Primary Election with action to follow.

 “Lincoln County had a total of 44,309 registered voters eligible to participate in this election, consisting of 26,628 republican voters and 17,681 non-political voters residing within Harrisburg School District, Sioux Falls School District, and Sioux Falls City jurisdiction. A total of 14,117 ballots were cast, including 10,358 republican ballots and 3,759 non-political ballots, resulting in an overall voter turnout of 31.86%. Overall, on election day and election night, reporting process went smoothly. Poll workers, election staff, and county personnel worked diligently to ensure voters were served efficiently and that the election procedures were followed accurately. During election night reporting, an issue was identified in precinct 1114 where the results were inadvertently reported twice, causing the precincts totals to appear doubled in the unofficial election night results. Election staff identified the discrepancy quickly, cleared the affected reporting results, and corrected the issue before the conclusion of the election night reporting. The issue was limited to the unofficial election night reporting process and did not affect the integrity of the election. The official canvas before you today reflects the accurate and verified results. As part of todays canvas, the board will review each precinct individually and compare the election night results to the official county canvas,” Lund said. 

While commissioners were canvassing the binders Chairwoman Tiffani Landeen asked Commissioner Doug Putnam if he was canvasing. 

“Canvasing what?” Putnam asked. 

“If you’re not canvasing the vote, then you’re not going to be able to vote on it,” Chairwoman Landeen responded. 

“What are you talking about?” Putnam asked again. 

“What we are doing right now,” Chairwoman Landeen told Putnam again. 

“Yeah, this is kind of a joke, that’s all I can say,” Putnam responded. 

“I’m sorry, you think canvasing the election is a joke?” Landeen questioned. 

“You look through a couple things, it’s just you need more time to do this,” Putnam said. 

“We have all the time, but you’ve got to be actually doing it,” Landeen said. 

“Then I’ll take my time and I’ll do it,” Putnam responded asking for all the canvases he had looked through to be brought back to him to review again.

The group resumed canvasing the election, twenty minutes later, Chairwoman Landeen asked staff to review the information Commissioner Putnam was reviewing. 

“Kayla, do you want to hand me the one Commission Putnam is canvasing if he’s not going to open the poll books and compare them to the register in the binder,” she asked. 

Putnam put his hands in the air as Landeen again said “he’s not doing it.”

“What am I supposed to do. You open it up, you see if there’s one on here. This is a joke,” Putnam said. 

“What’s a joke about it, Commissioner?” Landeen asked. 

“Well, you open this up and you look and see if this person’s here. There’s no real canvassing or looking at anything. It takes a lot more time than what we’re doing, or you guys are doing,” Putnam responded. 

“Well, if you’re unable to do it or not willing to do it the right way, then tell us so that we can do them,” Landeen said. 

“What is the right way to do it,” Joel Arends interjected. 

“If you look on the briefing form, the admin rule tells you exactly what you are supposed to be doing for the canvas,” Auditor Lund said. 

“Where’s that rule at?” Putnam asked. 

“Right in front of your face on the screen,” Landeen said. 

“You guys looked these all over good and there’s no discrepancies whatsoever, right?” Putnam asked. 

“It’s a sampling commissioner,” Chairwoman Landeen said. 

“Yeah, you sampled it. That’s for sure. Here, you take it and you do it,” Putnam responded handing Commissioner Jim Schmidt the binder he was holding. 

“Did any commissioners find anything wrong,” Putnam asked once Schmidt had finished the work for him. 

“You know, we’re dealing with a bunch of professionals here that are doing this stuff. You know, the chances of a mistake is pretty nil,” he continued. 

After reviewing all the binders, Chairwoman Landeen asked the commissioners if there were questions regarding the canvas, hearing none, she asked for public comment on the canvas, 

Chad Skiles was the first to speak. 

“I just wanted to stand up here as a citizen of Lincoln County and personally thank Auditor, Sheri Lund, election coordinator, Kayla, the entire election team, the staff, election workers, volunteers, and everyone that was behind this election. Thank them for an efficient, well-run, organized, transparent, clear and concise instructions, and the entire process of holding the election. Lincoln County is the third largest county in South Dakota, and that team counted and tabulated just under 15,000 votes in just under four hours and I personally commend them for a fantastic job,” he said. 

Beth Quail spoke next. 

“This is the first time I’ve witnessed a canvasing by a commission and when I came in here and saw all the books, I thought this was going to take all day. Obviously, not everyone was trained to even know what to do and even with that, I would hope all of the commissioners would have a refresher course each time they do this. I appreciate the time that has been taken by Commissioner Arends to really go through as people don’t trust the election process and to have a commissioner that is truly looking through and looking for mistakes for discrepancies, I think that is wonderful. A comment that was made earlier that this is a joke, I kind of agree with that because this should have taken longer to go through to make sure everything is the way it should be,” she said. 

Auditor Lund was looking for a motion to approve and execute the abstract of the results of the votes cast for each of the candidates and each of the issues. Motion to approve by Arends. With no voter information in front of him, Commissioner Putnam stated he was not done looking over the information. Chairwoman Landeen asked Lund what happens if there is no second. 

“You will have to come up with an abstract of the election because you’re not willing to vote on the one that has been presented and we can set up a special meeting for tomorrow for you guys to prepare your abstract,” Lund said. 

“Well, it would have been nice to have a little bit more information about this whole deal, that was a big joke, throw it” Commissioner Putnam said. 

“This is your board, this is for you to decide how to canvas it. So for the training, it would be from you. So if you want training, you have to decide how you want to do it. This is your board,” Lund responded. 

“So you’re saying if I thought this was wrong then we should talk amongst ourselves?” Putnam asked. 

“If you think this is wrong, you should come up with a canvas to present to the board. The canvas I presented is the results from the election,” Lund responded. 

“And I’m sure they’re probably all right. You know, you smoke through them and I do believe probably that everybody was reputable in what they did as far as the voting goes and the procedures, so I guess I’ll second the vote and we’ll have her done,” Putnam said. 

“I think the point that Commissioner Putnam was trying to make is you could see there is a variety of opinion from the commissioners on what it means under administrative rule 5.02.17.112 02.17.112 duties of official board of canvassers for local jurisdiction subsection 3 tabulate the returns form the precincts and the certification of provisional ballot count. I think what was happening here today is Commissioner Putnam was being chastised, criticized for his interpretation of what it means to tabulate. As you could see, maybe his definition is different than mine or different than other county commissioners. My definition of tabulate could be to correlate and correspond every single name that’s in the poll book with the name of every person on the voter list that voted. And as you can see, there is a variety of interpretations by each commissioner as to what that means,” Arends said. 

“You would agree Commissioner Arends, that they should open the poll book,” Chairwoman Landeen said. 

With no response she asked if Arends’ disagreed with her statement. 

“This is not a cross examination, counselor,” Arends responded. 

“No, it’s a bunch of political theater is what it is,” Landeen said. 

“Every time you don’t like something you call it political,” Arends said. 

Commissioner Putnam spoke again. 

“Now, I seen you two plow through it like a beer drinking contest and I’m looking at this and there’s no way that I could sit there and look at this all day. I actually honestly think we should have the whole day to look through them better or we trust the people that have done the work to be honest and forthright. To look at one thing in one book is kind of like going in a forest and trying to find a tree, just one tree. Nobody has ever found anything wrong, so you do what you want to do, but this whole deal should have taken a lot longer,” Putnam said. 

Motion carried unanimously.

Auditor Lund informed the board that Lincoln County will be holding the post-election audit June 16 at 10 a.m., which must include 5% of Lincoln County precincts. 

“This will be two precincts, and we will be using bingo balls to pick the precincts,” Lund said. 

Sioux Falls 114 and Sioux Falls 210 precincts were chosen for the audits. Manual counts will also take place for the United States Representative, Charter Amendment B Sioux Falls, and At-Large A Council Member Sioux Falls.  

Chief Civil Deputy State’s Attorney, Drew DeGroot was present to ask the commission to consider a motion to advertise for Request for Proposals for Indigent Defense Services. 

“The board has previously made a motion and action to create the public defenders office. The hope is that we have the public defender advisory board in place. We are still receiving applications for the lay person that would be a person who is not an attorney, not an employee of the county, or law enforcement officer. The hope is that we can have that public advisory board in place in July. What this action here today is requesting is advertised for requests for proposals,” DeGroot said. 

Motion was made to approve by Arends, seconded by Putnam, motion carried.