Election Results Delayed By Electronic Chaos

If you are eagerly awaiting election results tonight prepare to stay up a little later. The office of the South Dakota Secretary of State reports some polling locations will be required to remain open later than 7 p.m. to reconcile a loss of voting time due to electronic failure.

According to the office of the South Dakota Secretary of State, eight counties that opted to use electronic pollbooks experienced “sporadic loss of connectivity” this morning. The counties included Brookings, Brown, Hughes, Hyde, Pennington, Potter, Sully, and Yankton. Most of those counties saw only minor delays waiting for paper voter registration lists and pollbooks to be delivered, and others were able to resolve the technical issues quickly.

In Pennington County, where Rapid City is located and which falls within the Mountain Time zone, delays will force some polling places to stay open until 8:45 p.m. MDT. In Hughes County, where Pierre is located, delays will extend polling hours until 7:20 p.m. CDT.

According to South Dakota statute, polls must remain open a minimum of 12 hours. Also according to South Dakota statute, poll results cannot be released until all polls are closed. This means voters in eastern South Dakota will be waiting until 9:45 before results start coming in.