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Woodbury County Auditor says Ballot Controversy A Disagreement Over Home Rule

After a court hearing Friday that invalidated the prepopulated ballot request forms and a call to have him resign, Woodbury County Auditor Pat Gill and election commissioner says today the problem was caused by a disagreement over home rule.
At a news conference this afternoon at the county courthouse, Gill said the secretary of state believed that he could issue a directive about sending out only blank ballot request forms under an emergency provision. Gill says he saw it differently.

"In my reading of the statute, I disagreed with that. As an elected official of Woodbury county, I have the authority to run elections as we see fit with the expertien d that we have with the voters of Woodbury County."

Gill says he has shared his plan with the board of supervisors to send out notices to voters who sent in the previous ballot request forms, to tell them the forms will be destroyed. All voters will get new, absentee ballot request forms in the mail.

The new forms will go out to about 57 thousand registered voters in Woodbury County in the next few weeks.

Gill had no comment about former state senator Rick Bertrand’s call for him to resign.

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