And this will be one of the first interviews where we actually will talk with an election official in depth to kind of get kind of what is happening behind the scenes in the amount of hard work that they have to do.
And so it's really important that we understand from their perspective all of the work and detail that is required to run secure and protect the elections.
And so I want to kind of have a little bit of a cheerleading event with Leo because really these election officials across the country are at the front lines of making sure that our elections are protected, they are secured.
And I think as we analyze the performance of all election officials in this election, I think we're going to have an opportunity to have honest discussions on how can we improve the elections?
Are we putting too much on election officials?
And are the expectations realistic for what we are expecting of them, but also how we perceive the elections themselves.
First, some of the breaking news that's happening.
And right out of Minnesota, we have breaking news that the Minnesota GOP wins the court battle against Hennepin County, where they refused 1,500 election judges that were pre-signed up by the GOP that they had submitted to the Secretary of State of Minnesota.
And Hennepin County had not selected any of those folks off the list.
This will have consequences across the state because there are other counties that have been in non-compliance as well.
And so the order is for Hennepin County to comply by November 1st.
What is absolutely absurd is that Minnesota overall has basically processed over 700,000 absentee ballots already received.
And so what a miss for bipartisan oversight of the elections has already happened in Minnesota.
And so as the absentee increases for the weekend here coming up, the GOP will finally have a front seat to be able to help protect the elections in Minnesota.
Now, what we're also finding out is that we have a 2020 case before DC where a judge could block the RNC from election challenges.
And so this is this old case that has been out there since a 1981 consent decree.
And what's actually really disgusting about this is that we have Mark Elias, who has also been out there.
He won't commit to accepting the results of the election if Trump wins.
And I know Mark Elias from back in 2008 in Minnesota, where he was the one that basically flipped a 727 vote Republican victory into a 312 vote victory for Senator L. Franken.
That was the deciding vote for Obamacare and much of what changed where the trajectory of where the country is going.
And so I have first-hand experience in that and how that happened.
Now, Gateway Pundit is also reporting that the Pennsylvania GOP committee woman, she's been speaking out after her arrest and she was cuffed to a bench and even more.
And she was basically there where she was identifying that people were told to leave and to go into another area to vote.
But in reality, these people were legitimately in line waiting to vote.
And some of the people were being misdirected to locations where they were out of election materials.
And so there's more that's going to be developing out of that story.
And especially Pennsylvania, there is so much news coming out of there.
And we've also identified election interference where Democrats are reportedly caught posing as election officials in Pennsylvania, and while other officials are shoving voters out of line.
And so this particular person was, in essence, trying to pretend that they were able to collect ballots before people were putting them into drop boxes or in other areas.
And so this is absolutely ridiculous that this is happening, especially right on kind of the eve of the ending of their early absentee balloting as well.
And so even Elon Musk has spoken out about this, making sure that people were saying, hey, look, this is your last day to basically vote in Pennsylvania early.
And so this was the chance.
And even Josh Shapiro, the governor there, was basically telling everybody: if you are in line at a county election office by 5 p.m., the counties must give you an opportunity to apply for your mail-in ballot.
And so there seems to be a little bit of a disconnect of what was happening in Pennsylvania.
And so these are things that are just going to absolutely have to be reviewed in the next legislative session.
Now we even see in Bucks County emergency services shut down a voting line early as Republicans surge on the final day of voting.
And so this is outrageous.
And even Elon Musk has been basically out there saying, look, this isn't right.
And even activist Scott Pressler, who's working with the RNC, it's been disgusting to see that voters have been turned around.
We knew that this was going to happen.
We know that both parties were out there encouraging voters to vote early.
Then we see a huge issue in Nevada County, California, where there were smears on the barcodes that were causing scanning issues with 77,000 mail-in ballots.
And so these imperfections matter.
And this is one of the things that on outside ballots it matters in the scanning of the envelopes as election officials scan them in for check-in in many of the states, but also in express vote machines where barcodes are used for the disability devices or the primary devices that some states use, like South Carolina, where they use the touchscreens and then it prints out a barcode.
So that barcode is so important that it can be read properly.
And so we always need to make sure that we're testing early on that to make sure that things are on the up and up.
Now, the other thing that is actually just absolutely frightening is that a box of ballots was found on a Florida turnpike after reportedly falling off of a truck.
Now, what's interesting is that election worker was terminated.
And Christina White, kind of the head of the elections there, she intimated there that the worker forgot to lock the back of the truck.
And as they drove off, one of the sealed bins and one sealed bag fell out of the truck.
But the reality is, seriously, why wasn't there a better chain of custody?
Why wasn't there bipartisan oversight?
We shouldn't allow a singular person to basically travel with ballots at any point in time.
And so, this is another thing that I think will be talked about in many legislatures.
Then, back to Pennsylvania, we see that election officials are examining thousands of suspected voter registrations and ballot applications from a third-party group.
And so, what is absolutely astounding is that they're receiving thousands of applications from a Arizona-based consulting firm where they have been out there recruiting people to get out and vote.
And so, this isn't even a party activity that is out there doing this.
Then, back to South Dakota, we have an interesting article that has popped up where 273 people were removed from the voter rolls due to human error by the state.
So, the State Department of Public Safety announced this removal.
And what's interesting is that initially there was quite a few pieces that were confusing about this because of the lack of information, but we have updated information.
And now, it is being stated that there had been human error by the Department of Public Safety where the citizenship status was incorrectly marked.
And so, we have been able to follow up through the Secretary of State's website, where even other groups were coming in to threatening to sue the Secretary of State's office regarding the removal.
And the Secretary of State basically responded back to a letter to those organizations that belaying the false report that South Dakota conducted a systematic review of voters.
No, this was more targeted to the actual group that the Department of Public Safety had identified were incorrectly entered in.
And so, they went back and actually made the correction to those limited records that were an inadvertent error.
And so, that is, so just to make sure that there's clarity there, that everybody understands that, that this was not conducted during any type of a voter roll maintenance, but it was a specified correction based upon that these voters should have not been registered in the first place.
And so, we'll have more information eventually up at Midwest Swamp Watch, and we'll have the full statement out there from the Secretary of State.
But, in kind of interesting news, there was a transgender Democrat voter arrested for a Trump shooting threat a day before the Pennsylvania rally.
And so, this is just making it the rounds right now.
And I'm sorry, but this is just a funny picture in regards.
But this is basically a potential third attempt on President Trump's life that is now out in the news.
Now, we are seeing from the Daily Mail that they're even aware that U.S. intelligence fears insider attack on the election is likely.
And this is where I need to remind everyone that is out there: if you are an activist in regards to election security and integrity, please do not take any type of threatening actions.
Asking questions is okay.
But we also have to understand kind of the stress level of many election officials that are just overwhelmed right now.
And be very, very patient with them because they're getting a lot of questions asked of them right now.
And if you can get your questions asked by and answered by party leadership or other activists, try to go through those paths now because we should be able to help answer a lot of those questions.
And then, when we see other questions that we are unaware of, we can certainly ask election officials to get clarity on those types of situations.
But it is interesting that the Colorado Information Analyst Center is now kind of classifying people into different threat groups.
And I'm sorry, but that's just not acceptable.
But the other thing that is interesting is that they have labeled Donald Trump as F POTUS, as the future president of the United States, not as a potential.
So I thought that was interesting there.
But for those of us that are wanting to report election crimes or any issues, please sign up at electioncrimebure.com that Mike Lindell has set up.
And there is another piece that you're going to want to download as well, which is the vocal app.
And that allows you to report election incidents, such as what we've described here earlier, where if you find that a post office box has been tampered with, somebody's mail has been tampered with, report that to the proper authority and then also report it here.
If you are being denied access for a public accuracy test, report that here.
If you are having trouble in your state having election judges seated where they are supposed to be allowed by law, please report that here.
It is so important that we get this information out there.
Tonight is a special treat.
I get to talk with a friend of mine, Leah Anderson of Minnehaha County.
She was elected in 2022.
She is in charge of one of the largest counties in South Dakota.
And it is absolutely amazing the work that she has done, but also kind of the, I'm going to say a little bit of the abuse, but also the support that she is also getting.
I just got a text from one of the viewers here, and they want to thank Leah Anderson for all of her hard work.
But Leah, give us a little bit of a background of you worked in the kind of the accounting industry.
You are an auditor by trade.
And give us a little bit more about yourself.
Yeah, so first off, can you hear me okay?
We hear you loud and clear.
Thank you.
Great.
Okay.
Yeah, so I spent 26 years in accounting, mostly auditing and financial accounting before I decided to run as the auditor in Minnehaha County.
Okay, great.
And so, of course, I have you at kind of an inopportune time because you're actually working late tonight trying to prepare for the elections.
You kind of told me a little bit earlier tonight that you had to run into the office to basically kind of create some additional labels for some of your election boxes and materials just to kind of make it easier for your staff to be able to kind of identify each of the materials out there, correct?
Well, technically, I'm working on a spreadsheet taking our estimated turnout for the election for each precinct.
We have 81 precincts.
We have 90 ballot styles, taking those numbers and calculating who has so far voted absentee either by mail or in person, and also calculating out the yuacavas that will need to be recreated and coming up with what should be our inventory that we send out to the precincts.
It's very complicated because our absentee voting goes through Monday at five o'clock, but I have to send out our ballot boxes to the precinct superintendents starting on Thursday.
So, wow, you get no breathing time, unlike what we've just kind of witnessed here with Pennsylvania, where they get kind of a stoppage.
And there are some other states too that would stop on Friday and then resume elections on Tuesday.
And so I think this is going to be kind of an interesting discussion, I think, from your leadership perspective.
That we're stopping an election at 5 p.m.
On Monday night and then having this expectation that you're going to get all the election materials out to all these various precincts and to make sure that you have enough of everything, because I'm looking at the numbers of the absentee, because I get the daily subscription and I'm actually seeing good voter turnout in South Dakota and Minnesota.
Our turnout here averages about right now it's a little over a thousand a day voters, and so it's very hard to keep up with.
And yeah, we don't get any breathing room in South Dakota, so we have to have everything ready.
We print our registration lists on Saturday so we come in.
I've worked till eight nine, ten o'clock at night every night for the last month trying to get ready and stay on top of things, and our absentee process starts 45 days before the election in South Dakota, like some of the other states, and then there's a few states that start 14 days or 10 days before the election, so they have a narrower time period.
Do you see a lot of people taking advantage of go ahead.
Oh, I was just gonna say yes.
If I had a wish for our legislators um, in the coming session, it would be to do some modifications so that we could actually do a much better job getting our supplies and our precincts ready for voting day, for election day, by ending that process on say, a friday before the election.
Sure, sure.
Now, what about uh, when we look at walk me through an absentee ballot the way you have to process that versus an in-person ballot?
Now, in South Dakota, you are a central count uh state where all of the uh ballots at the precinct are dropped into the ballot box, not into the tabulator by the voter like some states, and so then all of those precincts then bring the boxes to the county seat at night and then you and your team then process all of those ballots.
Now, what about the absentee ballots?
How does that look differently?
Is that more complicated to handle?
Um, it's becoming complicated because of the volume that we're getting.
We're up to about 22 or 23 000 ballots at this point.
We're running out of space in our vault um, to have people in there working and keeping the ballots in there.
So the complication is just the volume.
Uh, what we do is, uh, so we audit our ballots every night um, and then on the day of elections um, so in south Dakota, the county parties, the two major parties, have to Notified ahead, which we did that, so that we can start processing and counting our absentee ballots on election day prior to the closing of the polls.
But we don't release the totals until the polls close.
So, but we can start tabulating those ballots.
Those ballots stay sealed in an envelope.
It has the voters' information on that envelope and their signature.
If anything were to happen to a voter, let's say we've had probably 10 to 12 deaths that have occurred where someone has voted because we went out to nursing homes to allow people to vote.
And some of those folks have not made it long enough.
So, their ballot will not be counted because in our state, we don't count a ballot if a person has passed away.
So, we have to be able to pull those ballots out.
And then on election day, all of those ballots go up to an absentee board, which ours consists of approximately 50 people.
And they process those ballots, record them in a poll list, remove them from the envelope, and put them in a ballot box to be tabulated.
Okay.
And in your county, are you a where each voter has to vote in their precinct that they reside in, or are you a vote center type where anybody can vote anywhere in the county?
Our county is precinct-based voting, so they have to go to their polling place on election day.
However, during the absentee process, we have in-person absentee voting at our county building, and they can come in regular business hours, Monday through Friday, 8 to 5, through November 4th at 5 o'clock, and they can vote any precinct at that point.
So, we have to have a stock of ballots.
That's where my complication comes in with what I'm working on right now.
I need to have a stock of ballots on hand for people that come in and vote, but yet I also need to send out the appropriate number to the precincts.
Oh, sure, because that gets a little bit more complicated.
And I'm so glad to hear that you're not a vote center because I live in a vote center county up here in Brookings County, and I can only imagine what my poor county auditor has to go because what she has to think is a higher level than where you're at because you have basically two buckets that you have to worry about.
She has 16 buckets that she has to worry about because there are 16 different precincts that if a voter shows up at any of those precincts, they have to be able to vote.
So, she has to have enough ballots for that scenario as well.
And I don't particularly like that scenario because I prefer to have that local oversight by the election judges to determine whether or not that person is actually a valid voter or not and actually lives in the precinct.
And so, I like your county setup where you guys are more rigid in that regard to really kind of protect the integrity of the election by keeping it precinct-based, local, and the local citizens can kind of help in that regard.
I was hearing across the United States that auditors were finding it hard to find volunteers to be able to get help and election judges to conduct the elections.
What was your experience like this year?
We get a lot of people that want to help, so I can't say we don't have enough people.
It's a very complicated thing to manage.
I have a great election coordinator.
His name is Mike Mathis.
He is, and all of our staff works very hard on elections, so it takes the whole crew.
As far as getting the workers, we did have a lot of people that decided along the way or last minute that they didn't want to work.
So we're constantly having to update that schedule.
You know, we had to have our appointment letters out on the 16th of October, and I had those out early.
And then I've redone those appointment letters a couple times ever since then.
So my first letters went out on the 7th of October, and then I had to send more out.
So it's just been kind of a shuffling.
It's kind of like playing whack-a-mole.
Oh, I believe it.
And especially when you have your own staff where they have lives, and then just the public out there where births happen, sicknesses happen, family things happen, loss of jobs.
I mean, there's all sorts of randomness that are inserted into elections, especially when it comes from partisans who are willing to volunteer, but then something happens in their lives.
And so obviously that means you have to have additional people to kind of help you.
Do you find that there is generally enough support from the two major parties to provide enough volunteers and election judges for your county's needs?
I don't feel that the support comes directly from the parties.
Let's say, like the party chairs per se.
I think our party base people step up and volunteer.
But I've gotten really no support.
My own party is the Republican Party, but I really do not get support from our local Minnehaha County GOP.
They do not reach out and help supply anything, workers or any feedback.
So it was interesting, I believe it was in 2023 or four, there was a change in the state law to at least help one piece of contact, which was for the precinct committee men and women.
The state law now requires that we get their email addresses.
When I was traveling over to Wyoming, I thought it was really ingenious that in their state statutes, they actually require their party chairs to provide a list of election judges, hand count folks, but also alternates.
Is that something that you'd like to see South Dakota maybe take a look at?
Yeah, so our parties are allowed to present a list to us.
And if they don't, then we have to find the workers.
So thankfully, we have a lot of dedicated workers that have worked many years in the past.
We have a lot of new ones that have stepped up to help fill in the empty spots.
But I think our precinct committee people, especially in the general election and our county parties, I think they should be required to help fill those positions.
It's a lot of work.
It's taken Mike's focus for over a month and a half just to deal with phone calls and communication with our almost 500 workers.
Wow, 500 workers.
That's incredible.
And how large?
What's the population size of Minnehaha County?
I think we're, well, the whole county, I think we're right at 200, a little over 200,000.
I don't have the exact number.
That's fine.
That's fine.
But at least around 200,000.
So it kind of gives people an idea.
So if they had 20,000 population, they would have to have at least 50 election workers.
So then at 200,000, you need about 500.
And so that's scalable.
And so that kind of makes sense.
And so just kind of give people a little bit.
So I want to take a quick commercial break after the commercial.
I want to talk about ways that we can protect the elections, the disaster recovery plan, but also let's take a look at a logic and accuracy test.
So Apollo, take it away for the commercials.
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And now one of the things I want to review with Leah Anderson is looking at kind of protecting the elections.
The first thing I want to review with you, Leah, is this sample ballot issue that I've kind of discovered across the United States.
And so I have side by side a Minnesota case and a South Dakota case.
I'm going to put you on the spot because your ballot is here.
And we're going to go through some of the things that you did right and what Minnesota did wrong.
And so here is the sample ballot that we have side by side.
And we'll have to go to full screen mode so that way the viewers at home can see it.
Apollo, there we go.
Thank you, Apollo.
All right.
So on the left-hand side, we see a Carver County ballot.
And what you'll notice is there are these black boxes that are going around.
And I believe those are called timing marks, correct, Leah.
And the tabulators use that to read and decipher which precinct and program it should be using to basically collect the results of the ovals and then interpret that ballot, correct?
That is right.
And then the ballot over on the right-hand side, we can see that it says clearly sample general election ballot in Minnehaha County.
What's interesting here is that there are no timing marks, and you've also identified that this is a sample ballot.
So if we were to put your ballot into your tabulators, it would reject this ballot, correct?
Correct.
Now, in the case of Carver County, if somebody were to print out that ballot, put it into the tabulator, it would accept that ballot.
We have just received evidence today of a voter who went into Carver County, was handed the wrong ballot today, then was handed the corrected ballot.
She took a picture of both ballots, went online to the Secretary of State's website, and the timing marks are an exact match.
So when we look at securing an election, I think Carver County Auditor didn't do their due diligence, did they?
Whereas you and the Secretary of State of South Dakota, because I from her website, your ballot, you guys work collectively as a team to ensure that the elections in Minnehaha County were protected.
And so I want to thank you for that.
And I think when voters go out there and look at their sample ballot, I think that's the first step everybody should do tonight is you should go online, look at your sample ballot.
And if your sample ballot doesn't have the timing marks and it has the word sample across it, I want you to go write your county auditor or your clerk.
Thank you.
I want you to do that.
Okay.
Now, those that didn't protect your vote, I want you to write them a nice email and say, is there anything that you can do to remove this ballot?
Don't be derogatory, but I want you to take that information.
I also want you to then, if your sample ballot is out there with the timing marks and it doesn't have the word sample across it, I need you to report that to the Mike Lindell Election Crime Bureau.
We need to know this because I think all citizens need to know whether or not their elections are at risk.
This is really important.
This is something so easy.
Because in these areas where there are drop boxes, where there are areas where there are bad people with bad intentions, they could print out these ballots and they could do ballot swaps, whether they're at the U.S. Postal Service, whether they commandeer a Dropbox, whether they're a bad actor managing the absentee ballot without provision.
There's too many trajectories.
There's even people who could print out ballots and steal people's voter registrations and absentee ballot applications and submit these types of ballots.
This is so important.
This is such a frontline defense that we must protect our elections.
And so this is something that in Minnesota, it is actually a felony for an election official to allow this type of ballot to be online, to be produced.
So I hope good people will come to terms with this.
And I'm calling on the Secretary of State of Minnesota, Steve Simon, who is also head of the National Secretary of States, to take action and to clean this up because this is directly from his website tonight.
Okay.
All right.
So now the next piece.
I know that's a little bit heavy for everybody to kind of understand, but that's an easy bite at the apple that you can do tonight.
All right.
Next up, Leah, I'm going to put you on the spot again.
But this report comes from Minnesota again.
And this is a logic and accuracy test.
And what was cool about this one is it's actually from a DS950.
New equipment.
So, all right.
So, and you have a DS, you have, well, I have to back up here.
You have two DS850s, and then the city partners with you with another set of DS-850s, right?
Three of them.
Yeah, we have four total here.
The city reimbursed the county for one of them, yes.
Okay.
Okay, that's where I was getting confused.
All right, so you utilize four of them.
And do you have any DS-200s that you use?
No.
Because you're not a precinct type of county.
So that means you process all of them.
So Minnesota, the voters put the ballots into the tableau themselves at the precinct level.
And so those are the DS-200s.
So that happens in Wisconsin and so many other places across the country.
Now, do you also use the Express Vote disability device, which is something that ESNS also sells?
Can you kind of describe the Express Vote?
How does that help people with disabilities vote?
What are the options for them?
Yeah, so the Express Vote, we have one at every precinct.
We also this year, during the primary and this general election, took them out or took an express vote out to the care facilities because we have to go and conduct voting at care facilities.
So we spent a couple weeks going to each one.
Today we actually did another visit and went to the VA hospital.
We had some voters there that wanted to vote.
We did not use the express vote there.
They didn't need it.
But at the other care facilities, we do use it.
So the express vote is a ballot marking device.
And it's ours are set up where every precinct ballot, so every ballot style is on our express vote.
And then we order our ballot stock for the express votes, which is a thermal ballot stock.
We order it by the ballot style.
So each one has a barcode on it to indicate to the express vote device which ballot to pull up.
And we test, so we run test ballots here at the county through every express vote when we're programming.
And then we also send out two test ballots for each precinct to run when they're setting up their express vote at their location to make sure that it's working properly.
The express vote itself just marks the ballot.
It gives the voter a couple options.
Ours has the touch screen, so you can make the screen really large if a person can't see very well.
It also has the ability to, if the voter is blind or has poor vision, they can use a headset and then they can use a touchpad or a touch device that has Braille.
So it allows them to have the ballot read to them and then they can navigate through the ballot.
It's not fast.
So you think express meaning fast.
It's not a fast way to vote.
So you're saying it's like Congress.
It's the opposite of Congress.
Yeah.
So it's actually a decent device for people to use.
In our state, anyone can use the Express Vote to mark their ballot.
So we've tried to use them, especially at the care facilities, because if a person can't color in the oval properly, it gives them the ability to vote their ballot themselves and not have to depend on someone else to mark that ballot for them.
And that's such an important statement because there are so many people that do want to try to vote independently.
And I guess this is probably one of the successes of the Help America Vote Act is to bring about these devices.
But in federal and in state law, if you need assistance, you can bring anybody else in to always help you.
And that can also be somebody that you bring in from the outside or one of the election workers or anybody else there in the public that you pick that you want to have assistance with.
Don't be afraid to ask because the election workers are there to help you.
And especially the auditors and the election officials, they want to make sure that you can vote.
And so with these express vote devices that are available in so many states, and then I believe Dominion has another device called an omniballot system.
And so there is no excuse that you can't get out and vote this year, especially when the United States is invested in such good equipment across.
But it's so important to test.
So like we saw in earlier's news feed, we talked about there was a barcode issue on some of the mail-in ballots.
And you just kind of explained that the express vote ballots rely on a barcode at the top that is placed for each of the candidates when the voter is making their selection.
So I'm going to quickly show a graph here that I have of a difference between an express vote ballot and then a standard ballot.
And so the ballot on the left is a typical express vote ballot, kind of like what you have there in Minnehaha County.
This one just happens to be from Wisconsin.
And so for that top barcode is basically the precinct that they are voting in.
And then each of the subsequent barcodes are the actual candidates that they selected.
If they don't select a candidate, it doesn't create a blank or a deselect.
And the other advantage of the express vote is you can't ever do an overvote, correct?
Correct.
Yep.
Yep.
And then the ballot on the right, that is a standard ballot.
with the timing marks that we see on the left-hand side that identify that precinct so that the machine can read it.
And so when we look at this, these are two different ballot styles and types.
One is a barcode and the other one is the oval filled in.
And so now as we transition into the test deck here, I like this format.
This is great.
So now let's review the test deck here out of Stearns County, Minnesota.
And this is kind of a walkthrough here.
And what we see here is a listing of six different ballot styles that they're going to process here.
So we see the sequence number.
Then down below, we see three different ballot styles that are indicating school districts, 485, 738, and 748.
The real disappointing piece here is that with these six ballot styles, they only tested one ballot styles out of the six with 57 ballots, and they only processed one blank sheet.
So right out of the gate, I was disappointed to see this, that they immediately failed.
And so the other thing, just kind of from your point of view, this would not be acceptable in Minneha County, correct?
Correct.
Even the test deck that we were provided, I didn't feel was acceptable.
So I, of course, worked with you and other volunteers to create a better test deck.
I was also earlier, we were having the discussion, you and I, Rick, that on our express vote test ballots, we had a machine failure today, which messed up some of our express vote test ballots.
And so now I'm creating more so that we can do a proper test on Thursday for our public test.
Even with all the work that we've put in to create additional test ballots, we still do not have what I think would be a sufficient test deck.
You're absolutely right.
And when I came in to help you on one of the Saturdays, we had seven volunteers fill out ballots for four and a half hours.
And it took the seven volunteers to do that.
And we only completed 11 of the precincts for you or styles.
And so there were other teams that came in to help with that afterwards.
And so now as we look at this test deck here, we know that Minnesota is set up kind of like you with their express, sorry, their ESNS system where they have the standard ballot and the express vote ballot.
Here, when we look at the Trump vote, we see that there's only one vote here.
And that tells us right away that they didn't test the express vote side of it.
And so because Donald Trump would be required to have a minimum of two votes, one ballot for each, the standard and the express vote.
And so that's not enough.
And then when we look at the overvotes, we understand that they didn't test all of the overvote possibilities because we only see one there.
And so an overvote is a voter selects more than one candidate is allowed in the race.
And so here at the top, underneath president vice president, we see vote for one.
So if somebody voted for two, that's an overvote.
They voted for three, that's an overvote.
Then here's the most unbelievable piece of the test deck.
This is one where we actually see, and I'll let you call it out.
Well, I see a lot of zeros.
Yep.
So something got missed.
Yep, that means they didn't properly test these candidates because they would have to have at least a vote to be able to test these properly.
And our recommendation is that each candidate should have a separate vote unique from other candidates.
Now, in Minnesota, that isn't a statute.
In South Dakota, it is.
And in Wyoming, it is also a statute.
And so this is where we, in order to be able to establish trust in our elections, want to make sure that every single candidate position is tested to ensure that the machine is actually going to place the votes correctly for each of the candidates.
And so this is where I was so proud to work with you on your test decks and that you were willing to be open to have volunteers come in and help you.
And I think that is such a big part that we want to recommend to all of the parties out there is that I think both political parties should be there present to help develop the test decks for the auditors.
And especially I want to call it another group.
And you and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago.
I think there should be more of a process and policy to work with the disability community to have some of their members come in and actually help test the express vote devices and omni-ballot devices because there's a lot of things that you and I as able-bodied people do not understand about the express vote systems.
And the reality is what we think how a person with disabilities would use the machine may not be true.
And so having those representatives from the disability community connect with election officials across the state, I think would be really instructive and helpful, especially to have them as part of the election process where they come.
And I don't think that they have to come through the party.
I think they should be there as a separate group to be part of the process, especially the testing.
What are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, so I had that idea in my head as well.
We weren't able to accomplish that due to time.
But I think going forward, I would love to have members from that group come in.
We've learned some things too, just having a couple people come in.
In fact, there was a member of the community that wanted to use the express vote in the primary election and wanted to use that touchpad that I had talked about, the keypad, and found out that he couldn't use it.
And the reason why it wasn't working is because you have to have the headset activated as well.
So you have to listen to the ballot and use the keypad, not just use it as a toggling device.
So when you're using it, it doesn't just move a cursor around on a screen.
And I didn't realize that and neither did the person or the ADA folks did not realize that either.
So they were all upset thinking that we had an express vote that didn't work in the primary and come to find out it was just the way that they wanted to use the express vote did not work that way.
So we've learned a lot with it.
And we've also learned how useful it can be for people that can't color ovals in on a ballot because it takes coordination and skill that as people age, they may be shaky and they may not be able to do that.
So, yeah, if we're going to pay the money to have these devices, I think they need to be used well.
Yeah.
And so we're talking about the equipment itself.
Now, we've heard in the news some issues with ESNS, but I want to talk about some of the positive notes.
And so I'm just going to ask you flat out.
Are you having any issues with the ESNS equipment that you need to have repairs that have not been finalized yet?
Or did you have a good experience with a technician that came in recently?
Yeah, so it was a self-created issue.
So our ballots are longer this year.
And when we first started running our test deck, I did not have the area where the ballot goes into after it processes.
I didn't have it pulled out far enough.
And so it created a jam, which then we fixed.
But then we had some other things going on with one of our machines.
And so anyway, we got it fixed to the point where we could use it for testing.
And then when I contacted ESNS, they suggested that we wait, you know, put more stress on the machine, make sure that we've run a lot of ballots through.
And then they wanted to come in today and because I wanted to have this done prior to our public tests, because I don't want anyone doing anything to the machine after our public tests.
But so today our maintenance guy came in and I've worked with him in the past, but today he and I spent a lot of one-on-one time together.
And yeah, he's a great guy to work with.
He was very good about showing me everything he was doing so that I wouldn't have any questions or concerns.
And then also teaching me how to be able to clean the rollers and take certain parts of the machine apart so that I could do some of that maintenance myself in between in case we have an issue.
Part of that is because we are not going to have support on election day from ESNS.
Normally we would have somebody here and we asked for that, but they do not have enough people to go around with it being a busy day for elections.
And so our county is not going to be provided someone.
But on the positive side, this particular technician that I've worked with before, he is just very committed to making sure that I'm comfortable with everything, that I know how to handle the machines well, that I know everything that they are capable of doing, and helping me to feel comfortable because coming into this, I did not have any comfort level with our ESNS machines.
And they knew that because I was very clear.
In fact, this particular technician confided in me that he's heard rumblings from other counties and other people within the company that when he said he was going to Minnehata County to work with me today, that, oh no, you have to go work with Leah Anderson.
And he said, well, I actually enjoy working with her.
She really takes her job serious and she wants to do a good job.
So I appreciated his confidence in me and helping me get to a point of confidence in the machines.
That I do think there's still capability of wrongdoing, but I think if you have somebody that's good operating the machine that understands the capabilities and that is cautious and makes sure that things are done well and that everything is tested properly and audited after the election, I think that we can come to a good use of the machine.
But I still like the idea of the handcount audits.
And with that, I think that's the perfect end statement for the show.
I want to thank you again, Leah Anderson, America's auditor.
You have really enlightened the public as to what is happening out there.
I don't want to keep you anymore from your long night tonight.
Again, thank you.
I hope you have a successful election.
So proud of your supporters.
I'm getting a ton of texts right now.
Thank you from my heart and the state of South Dakota and all of the viewers out there that are supporting us.
Thank you again.
Everyone out there in America, make sure you support your election official through the election.
And if anything happens, be there to help and make sure you stay awesome.