In the past few years, a certain segment of South Dakota society has become adamant about making specific improvements in the way we live.
Is this a citizen quest for more education funding? No. Is it a movement to put often overlooked Native American issues at the front of the state agenda? No. Is it a grassroots effort to revamp the way South Dakotans pay taxes? No.
This effort is aimed at cleaning up the states elections. Hold on, you might say. I didnt know there was a problem with our elections. Well, there isnt. But that isnt keeping the issue from being front and center at the Legislature and in county commission meetings across the state.
In the last legislative session there were more than 50 election-related bills introduced. About half of those had to deal with election integrity in the areas of voter qualification, technology and security. Thats a great deal of attention being paid to a part of government that, in the past, has been noted for working just fine.
Some of these bills may be duplicates. It has become a practice in the Legislature to introduce similar bills in the Senate and in the House. That way, if cooler heads prevail in the Senate, theres still a similar bill in the House, where bad ideas go to flourish.
Spurring on the quest for election integrity is an entity called South Dakota Canvassing Group. The groups mission statement is on its website: We are a volunteer organization working to restore free, fair, transparent and secure elections in South Dakota, now and for future generations.
Their work to restore elections in South Dakota implies that voting here has gone off the rails. If the Canvassing Group wants to ferret out corruption and illegalities in elections, theyre best off moving to another state. South Dakota, with a history of fair elections, doesnt need their help.
According to a story by The Dakota Scout, many of the election integrity chasers in this state got their inspiration at a three-day event in Sioux Falls. It turns out that their North Star, their inspiration, their muse, is none other than Mike Lindell. Hes not just the My Pillow guy; hes the My Presidents Election was Stolen guy.
Lindell was, and continues to be, one of the staunchest supporters of the idea that Donald Trump was somehow cheated out of victory in the 2020 election. At his 2021 Cyber Symposium in Sioux Falls, Lindell spent so much time offering false claims about Dominion Voting Systems throwing the election to Joe Biden that he was recently sued for defaming one of the companys executives. The jury awarded the executive $2.3 million in damages.
Some bills backed by the Canvassing Group were approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor: assigning a federal-only ballot to people who dont live permanently in the state, changing the definition of resident eligibility, designating county voter registration files as public records, changing the process for challenging someones residency status, increasing the penalty for voting illegally, placing citizenship status on drivers licenses, and sending a constitutional amendment to voters clarifying that a person must be a U.S. citizen to vote in the state.
However, just as Lindell continues to spout his falsehoods about the 2020 election, look for the Canvassing Group to keep up the pressure on legislators for more election integrity laws that arent needed. On its website, the top issue on the groups want list is an effort to make Election Day a holiday. In the last session, this came to the Legislature in a bill sponsored by Dell Rapids Republican Tom Pischke.
Pischke explained to the Senate State Affairs Committee that a holiday was needed because in some communities there are not enough poll workers nor enough polling places. He said he hoped to work on solutions to those problems without legislation, asking the committee to table the bill.
Creating a Tuesday Election Day holiday might free up more people to work on the elections, but it could just as easily cut down on voter participation. Instead of looking ahead to how theyll mark their ballots, citizens could just as easily be looking ahead to using a vacation day on Monday to create a long weekend.
South Dakota has a long history of running fair, accurate elections. For all their finger-pointing and hand-wringing, the Canvassing Group and the legislators who indulge them cant change that. Election integrity legislation amounts to nothing more than solutions in search of problems, trying to fix a system that doesnt need fixing.
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