I am in South Dakota

I am in South Dakota on business. Over the past several weeks, a number of readers have asked for our assessment of the Thune/Johnson Senate race, won by Johnson on the basis of last-minute ballots from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. There has been a great deal of suspicion about this election, especially because irregularities in the absentee ballot and voter registration processes came to light prior to the election. I believe a couple of Democratic operatives are being criminally prosecuted as a result of fraud committed in those processes. However, the insiders I talk to here are convinced that the votes that swung the election to Johnson were legitimately cast by actual people. Because of the pre-election irregularities, the election itself was supervised pretty closely, and Republicans here seem to be convinced that the reservation votes were legitimately cast. This probably explains why Thune did not pursue a recount.