A couple of weeks ago we heard some rumblings about a city election in the tiny little town of Ipswich, South Dakota. (2025 pop. 957) Friends of SD Canvassing heard what was going on and told the citizens that they should get in touch with us.
Soon we were fielding reports of ballot solicitation/harvesting, incomplete signature verification, improper vote counting, unreconciled ballot and vote totals, and lots of unqualified voters.
The City of Ipswich has three voting precincts or wards. The unofficial results for the April 8, 2025 elections for city councilman in Wards 1 and 2 were separated by only one vote!
This was a HAND COUNTED election. Color coded paper ballots were used; white, blue and green. We know what you are thinking…. hand counted election? This is great right?
YES, it is great. And the ONLY WAY the people of Ipswich knew the results were unreliable and that the counting was not correct is because it was TRANSPARENT. This really was a PUBLIC VOTE COUNT. If this had happened at the Edmunds County Courthouse, the only thing the people would get, if they were lucky, is a summary sheet of what the DS200 tabulator came up with and absolutely NO WAY to verify it.
Unfortunately, poor training for the counting board, the absence of poll lists by ward, no recap sheets by ward, incomplete reconciliation processes, and a really bad hand counting procedure marred the election night experience.
Dedicated and experienced poll watchers carefully checked off voters on their registration lists all day, and found evidence of many who voted in the wrong wards. In a town of under 1,000 people everyone knows where you live, where you used to live, where your relatives live, and definitely which ward you should be voting in.
The room was packed for the canvass of the vote, which apparently required the attendance of two sheriff’s deputies to keep the peace. The people had a lot of questions and objections, but the council was prepared to plow through the canvass as fast as possible and get the heck out of there.
Despite the canvass of the vote being a formal meeting of the board, open to the public, the chair disallowed public comment. Citizens were initially told they were not allowed to record the meeting either, which was quickly put down, as disallowing recording would also be a blatant violation of the law. SDCL 1-25-11. Recording of open official meeting to be permitted. No public body may prevent a person from recording, through audio or video technology, an official meeting as long as the recording is reasonable, obvious, and not disruptive. This section does not apply to meetings closed to the public pursuant to specific law.
We were also told by the people of Ipswich, in the last municipal election, the current councilmen were allowed to vote to certify their own election. This time, however, Councilman Coisman was not allowed to vote in a unilateral decision made by the chair.
“Anyone opposed?”
“Yeah, the First Amendment!”
“The citizens protest!”
Edmunds County resident Tod Gohl’s commentary on the proceedings can be found HERE.
After compiling reports of all the irregularities in the election, two candidates for city council filed a petition for a recount. The recount was scheduled for April 16, 2025 at 1:00 PM.
We were able to attend the recount and observe the process.
No evidence of impropriety was allowed to be presented to the recount board. The city attorney stated they were only there to recount the ballots from election night. Interestingly, there was only one registration list that did not identify the voters by ward. There was no evidence presented in the recount of any poll lists and the recount board and city finance officer could not produce any poll lists by precinct/ward. Therefore, there was no record of how many voters checked in to vote in each ward.
The total list of voters was reported at 399, but the total ballots voted were reported at 396. There were six spoiled ballots, but they were kept in an unsealed envelope in the finance officer’s office, which she had to retrieve for the recount board. When the FO was questioned, it was unclear if 3 were spoiled and 3 were rejected in counting, but either way, there was no proper documentation for this. Ballots rejected in counting should NOT be accounted for in the precinct recap sheets. It’s interesting to note the voted ballots were reported at 399 two times, until it was changed to 396. Recount board member Aaron Walberg attempted to reconcile the numbers, but was unable to receive a satisfactory answer for the discrepancy during the recount.
For all you math wizards, what is wrong with the photos below?
City Council Race Ward 1 : Kayla Hartwell / James Hoyle
Election night count 1 : Hartwell – 73 Hoyle – 72 = 145 votes, 145 ballots. No record of undervotes or spoiled ballots allocated to Ward 1.
Recount results : Hartwell – 73 Hoyle – 73 + one rejected ballot + 2 undervotes = 146 counted votes, 149 ballots accounted for.
Total ballots (pieces of paper) counted: 149
Undervotes : 2
Rejected: 1
Voted ballots: 146
Total votes = 149 (Basic Math)
There were two Ward 1 spoiled ballots found in the separate envelope. So that’s 151. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the number of unused ballots for Ward 1 returned to the city finance officer from the polling location?
THE RECOUNT RESULTED IN A TIE RACE FOR WARD 1 CITY COUNCIL.
At last night’s city council meeting, Candidate James Hoyle drew the high card, winning the election for Ward 1 Councilman.
City Council Race Ward 2 : Dustin Pitz / Dave Coisman
Election night count 1 : Pitz – 67 Coisman – 68 = 135 votes.
Election night count 2: Pitz – 67 Coisman – 67 = 134 votes.
Election night count 3: Pitz – 69 Coisman – 67 = 136 votes. 136 ballots. No record of undervotes or spoiled ballots allocated to Ward 2.
Recount results : Pitz – 67 Coisman – 68 + 2 undervotes = 135 votes, 137 ballots accounted for.
Total ballots (pieces of paper) counted: 137
Undervotes : 2
Rejected: 0
Voted ballots: 135
Total votes = 137 (Basic Math)
There were two Ward 2 spoiled ballots found in the separate envelope. So that’s 139. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the number of unused ballots for Ward 2 returned to the city finance officer from the polling location?
REVISED RECOUNT OVERTURNED THE WARD 2 ELECTION FOR CITY COUNCIL.
Councilman David Coisman is the new winner.
Thus far, our requests for public information from the election have gone unanswered. City Finance Officer Amanda Metzinger told us she is not allowed to answer the public records requests, but has been directed to send everything to the City Attorney, Mr. Vaughn Beck. Vaughn Beck is also the Edmunds County State’s Attorney, and is reportedly friends with McPherson County State’s Attorney Austin Hoffman. Austin Hoffman recused himself from any discussion on the CO2 pipeline in McPherson, yet has been causing an issue as his chosen replacement, Mr. Vaughn Beck, was rejected by the McPherson County Commission in favor of Mr. Brian Jorde. Nothing to see here.
According to reports from the people of Ipswich, votes were being and have been solicited by public officials for years. Ballots were picked up and returned by someone other than the voter, but there were no records of authorized messengers. Also, people knowingly cast ballots in the city election that do not currently even reside in the county, much less the correct ward. Many outdated voter registrations have been identified, and we even had voters tell us they were handed the wrong ballot and had no other options than to vote in the incorrect ward.
Municipal voter registration requirements are very specific:
9-13-4.1. Registration and residence required to vote in municipal election–Residence defined–Challenge–Contest of election.
No person may vote at any municipal election unless the person is registered to vote pursuant to chapter 12-4 and resides in the municipality at the time of the election. For the purposes of this section, a person resides in the municipality if the person actually lives in the municipality for at least thirty days each year, is a full-time postsecondary education student who resided in the municipality immediately prior to leaving for the postsecondary education, or is on active duty as a member of the armed forces whose home of record is within the municipality. A voter’s qualification as a resident may be challenged in the manner provided in § 12-18-10. No election may be contested on the grounds that any nonresident was allowed to vote if the nonresident was not challenged in the manner provided in § 12-18-10.
Since a voter challenge was not done on election night at the polls, the candidates cannot contest the outcome of the election based on residency issues.
BUT, and this is a huge BUT, SB185 passed and as of July 1, 2025, the people of Ipswich can get to work challenging the outdated voter registrations they have found, which will require the county auditor to update their records. Come the next city election in Ipswich, the citizens have every opportunity to make sure the rolls are much more accurate.
From the Aberdeen Insider:
South Dakota Canvassing still advocates for hand-counting
After the recount, Jessica Pollema, president of an election group called South Dakota Canvassing, said three pollbooks should have been kept April 8 — one for each ward.
That is supported by state law, which requires that the election supervisor provide a pollbook for each ward. Pollema said separate pollbooks would have allowed a way to clearly determine the number of people who voted in each ward, which can help audit the final ballot numbers at the end of the night. State law does allow for a singular pollbook if all wards are voting on the same ballot.
Pollema also suggested that separate ballot boxes be used for each ward, though all Ipswich voters on April 8 cast ballots in the same place — the county 4-H building. State law requires a sealed ballot box, but is unclear on whether there should be a different ballot box for each ward.
Coisman said the recount is proof that people are human and make mistakes. He said he hopes voters realize that every ballot cast matters.
Still unresolved, he said, is that he believes more than a dozen people voted in wards in which they do not live because they did not update their addresses on their voter registration.
Poll watchers can challenge those ballots on Election Day, but not after.
People are obligated to keep their voter registration address up to date, and Pollema encouraged them to do so.
South Dakota Canvassing is suspicious of using tabulators to count ballots. While the Ipswich recount revealed human errors that affected results, Pollema said there is an efficient, accurate process to hand-count ballots.
We were blessed to be hosted by generous strangers, and were able to give a presentation at the 4-H building to many who had not heard of our group or what we have been doing. We were so encouraged by their activism, engagement, and desire for truth, transparency and a government that represents the will of the people.
Everywhere we go, it is the same story. Local corruption, collusion between governing parties, government attorneys, and local law enforcement leave the people feeling they have no real representation, no legal remedy, and no law enforcement willing to take on the local officials. It’s a vicious cycle.
The Ipswich City election hand count process was not efficient, accurate or even reconcilable originally, but there is a way to hand count paper ballots in a fast, accurate and reliable manner, which we have been dedicated to training the great people of our state how to do. With proper training and a legally compliant audit trail, the Ipswich City Election would be very easy to hand count accurately in a short time frame. We would be more than willing to share this process with the City Finance Officer and the City Council to adopt before the next election.
Hand counted elections meet the requirements of the law of a PUBLIC VOTE COUNT. None of the issues would have been identified or even seen if counted by the black box voting machines.
What we witnessed was a PUBLIC VOTE COUNT, and it was a beautiful thing.
Kudos to the great patriots of Ipswich.
This is the way we get our country back!
