Letter to the Editor - Meyer: Is your vote secure?
In Minnehaha County we vote on paper ballots, but those paper ballots are all transported to a central location, where they are counted by electronic ballot counting machines called tabulators. The tabulators were purchased from Elections Systems & Services (ES&S) of Omaha, Neb.
According to SD codified law 12-17B-2, election equipment cannot connect to the internet. Minnehaha County also has a hardened standalone laptop, purchased from ES&S, used to compile the vote counts from the tabulators. That data that then gets loaded onto a thumb drive, transferred to another laptop, which is used to transmit the data via the internet to Pierre on election night. To comply with SD codified law 12-17B-2 and the federal standards of the US Election Assistance Commission (EAC), that hardened standalone laptop is required to be a certified piece of equipment without the ability to be connected to the internet. The EAC is the governing body that sets the standards for electronic elections, and certifies the testing performed by independent voting systems test labs.
The Minnehaha County Auditor ordered a new laptop from ES&S in March 2024, which was supposed to be an EAC-certified piece of equipment; however, the laptop provided by ES&S was not on the EAC’s list of certified equipment and also came with built-in wifi and Bluetooth capabilities, as described on the original invoice. The Minnehaha County Auditor presented these findings to the Minnehaha County Commission and States Attorney, but nothing happened. The 2024 elections were conducted on uncertified ES&S election equipment.
Through FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, it was learned that not only is Minnehaha County using an uncertified laptop running the wrong version of software, but the majority of SD counties are using ES&S tabulating equipment certified to the wrong Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) standards. This is the result of the State Board of Elections and the Secretary of State certifying equipment in violation of state rules and laws. Research has shown that these machines have been out of compliance since 2021.
Also, worth noting is that this election equipment was purchased with federal HAVA (Help America Vote Act) money. Participating is voluntary, but upon acceptance of federal HAVA funds, you also agree to comply with the rules of the EAC, which have been adopted into law in SD.
This information has been presented numerous times to the Minnehaha County Commissioners during public comment time at the commission meetings. The commission has yet to address this issue.
At the Minnehaha Commission meeting on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, a question was asked as it related to the delayed start of absentee voting. When a commissioner asked the auditor when would the absentee voting start, the auditor responded with “We have to follow the law”, referring to SD codified law 12-19-3, which allows a time frame of implementing voting within 48 hours of receiving those ballots.
As I once again provided public comment that Minnehaha is using uncertified and out of compliance equipment which results in illegal and uncertifiable elections, I left the commissioners with a question: “How come the law is followed regarding the Official Absentee ballots but the law isn’t followed as it relates to the equipment used to count our votes?”
I was met with total silence!
Cindy Meyer
Hartford
