Davison County Auditor Resigns, Highlights Election Issues

MITCHELL SD (KELO) — With just over three months to go until the 2024 election, South Dakota’s 10th-largest county will be looking for a new auditor.

Longtime Davison County Auditor Susan Kiepke has announced her resignation. Her last day as Davison County Auditor is August 16, and she will begin her new job with South Dakota Public Assurance Alliance.

“Elections used to be fun and everyone trusted the system and you could come to work, do your job and everyone was happy, that’s not the case anymore,” Kiepke said in an interview with KELLOLAND News. “There are people who think elections are not good, they believe that someone is hacking machines that are unhackable.”

Kiepke said claims that the June 2024 primary is skewed are false, adding that her office has regularly dealt with people who have claimed the results were wrong.

“We just had our first post-election audit in Davison County and it was 100% accurate, and yet we are still being told it was done wrong,” Kiepke said.

South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson said in a press release that South Dakota counties showed little to no discrepancies between the hand-counted post-election counts and the machine counts on election night.

Kiepke said she is not concerned about the integrity of South Dakota’s elections, but she is concerned about election officials, a concern she raised earlier this year.

“I used to have more polling places with five poll workers per place. I have reduced the number of polling places and polling stations and now have only three poll workers per place, primarily for security reasons,” Kiepke said in a column published earlier this year for the National Association of Counties (NACo).

The South Dakota Legislature passed a law during the 2023 legislative session that requires a post-election audit of ballots cast in five percent of voting precincts, comparing paper records to results from the voting system.

Kiepke said the public needs to listen to election officials.

“When provinces offer a workshop or when they show tests of machines that are public, be there,” Kiepke said.

Kiepke said that while her time with the province is coming to an end, she has no plans to go anywhere.

“Thanks to the new company, I can continue to help wherever I am needed in the region, so I will stay close by,” says Kiepke.

The last day to register to vote in South Dakota is October 21. Voting by mail begins September 20.