Ballot goof lists wrong party for two candidates
Two legislative candidates in District 15 were incorrectly identified as being Republicans on absentee ballots.
The mistake was noted this morning, the first day of absentee balloting for the Nov. 6 general election.
One of the candidates, Rep. Patrick Kirschman, is a Democrat who is not in a competitive race.
The other, Kathy Miles, is running as an independent against Sen. Angie Buhl, a Democrat.
Both Miles and Kirschman were listed as Republicans. District 15 is a heavily Democratic district with no actual Republican candidates on the ballot.
Minnehaha County Auditor Bob Litz said three people voted absentee in District 15 before the mistake was caught.
Those voters, Litz said, have been contacted and given new ballots to vote. The old ballots for the three voters have been marked as spoiled.
That course of action was decided in concert with Secretary of State Jason Gant's office.
New, correct ballots have been ordered and arrived shortly after 1 p.m. today.
Litz said any District 15 voters before the correct ballots arrive will be given a provisional ballot to cast. Those provisional ballots will be printed on a different kind of paper and will be manually counted on election night instead of run through the vote-counting machine.
In the files in the secretary of state's office, Miles and Kirschman are listed with the correct party affiliation, Litz said.
At Gant's website, sdsos.gov, sample ballots are listed correctly. The military and overseas ballots are also correct.
Litz said the mistake apparently was made by the printer, but said his office failed to catch it. He said Gant's office had nothing to do with the error.
"I certainly accept responsibility," Litz said.
Minnehaha County had only printed around 2,000 ballots for absentee voting, rather than the tens of thousands that will be printed for the full election. Litz said reprinting the mistaken ballots cost the county $188. That was only for the materials; Litz said the printer waived its fee because of the mistake.
Secretary of State Jason Gant says his office has notified auditors around the state of the District 15 error and asked them to review their ballots again for any other mistakes.
After the jump, the full, incorrect sample ballot: