South Dakota law limits release of ballot images and vote records

The law treats election returns and available vote records and ballot images as public records. The records include immediate unofficial returns, electronic records of how ballot marks were counted, and digital images of paper ballots counted by automatic equipment. A county auditor does not have to produce vote records or ballot images if the county's equipment software does not create them.

The election jurisdiction conducting the election may not release records or images that fail the listed safeguards. These limits apply to cast vote records and collections of ballot images released by the jurisdiction conducting the election. Records may not show when or in what order a ballot was cast, include personal information that could identify a voter, or present equipment data in the order it was generated. Records must include all ballots cast at the polling place or vote center. For a precinct or vote center with fewer than 100 ballots, the jurisdiction may release records only after removing the ballot style name and number and any contest unique to that location, then combining the records with records from another location into a collection of more than 100 ballots. The same editing and combining rules apply to records for a ballot style with fewer than 100 ballots; those records must be combined with another ballot style's records into a collection of more than 100 ballots.

The jurisdiction conducting the election is responsible for the costs of handling these records and images. This applies to producing, storing, archiving, and releasing cast vote records and collections of ballot images.