Imagine if you were serving overseas in the United States Military, with your family stationed alongside with you. Or worse, you were by yourself serving in hostile territory. If you were serving your nation, you would think that the last thing that someone would do would be to make it harder for you to cast a ballot during your time away from home.
Especially if you knew that during one of the last elections, 40% of uncounted ballots were due to votes that were not received in time to be counted for the election.
In fact, you would think that if politicians should do anything, aside from removing you from conflict, they should make sure your vote counts when your life is on the line, or at the least, you’re serving in a foreign land.
In South Dakota, legislators did just that this year. But, it’s run into a snag.
Among many things, Senate Bill 69 which was passed by both houses of the legislature, and was signed by the Governor, moved the date for petitions to be circulated backwards by a month into December of 2015, and moving the petition deadline to the first Tuesday in March. You might bemoan political campaigns starting a month earlier, but there’s a critically important reason to do so. Because there’s more time provided to facilitate the broad deadlines for military voting.
As I’d written back in January of this year:
This has been a move long in coming, given the tremendously tight deadlines largely driven by federal requirements of when to have ballots completed in time for military voting. According to the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) act, the MOVE Act requires States to send absentee ballots to UOCAVA voters at least 45 days before Federal elections.
So, those ballots have to be set in stone 45 days out under federal law.
Current law didn’t really allow for any significant time for challenges or fighting over ballot qualification. Those ballots were literally required to go to the printer within a couple of weeks of being filed. The proposed changes in law would give significantly more time to allow for challenges, but the cost is pushing the active campaign 2016 season back into 2015.
The bill was amended since I wrote that (it was originally back a week into February from the first Tuesday in March), but the same holds true – to meet federal guidelines on providing ballots to military voters as well as their overseas dependents, there simply needs to be more time.
Under Secretary of State Jason Gant, there were significant improvements to South Dakota’s system for military voters, as reflected in this article from Government Security News Magazine:
South Dakota Secretary of State Jason Gant has activated the new iOASIS system, a computerized absentee ballot system for members of the military. The iOASIS system will be available to military members serving overseas for the upcoming South Dakota elections in April 2014.
and…
The iOASIS system was developed and tested more than 1,000 times by the South Dakota National Guard as well as a number of overseas military bases. Intended as way to streamline absentee voting for military members serving overseas, it utilizes technology from the DoD such as the Common Access Card (CAC).
“iOASIS is based on a concept of simplicity,” said Gant. These voters will now be able to register to vote, request an absentee ballot, receive an absentee ballot and mark an absentee ballot in seconds. The ballot is then printed and returned for counting.
and..
Gant has presented the iOASIS system to the U.S. Congress as a potential solution for the American absentee-ballot system.
Gant’s IOASIS system was revolutionary, and greatly alleviated the step of having to send ballots out through the mail, but because of law the ballots are still required to be sent back via mail:
Military voters will now be able to register to vote, request an absentee ballot, receive an absentee ballot and mark an absentee ballot in seconds. The ballot is then printed and returned for counting.
While the IOasis system arguably shaves off half of the up to 60 day timeframe, under current law if ballots are not provided until the minimum required 45 days before the election, that provides a window of roughly about two weeks, and after that, you’re at the mercy of your job, military mail and the US Postal Service.
The timeframe between ballots being provided for absentee use has continually run down to the wire because of petition certifications, challenges to petitions, as well as the amount of time to print ballots. In moving deadlines back by about a month, Senate Bill 69 would have relaxed the pressure, and provided more time for both challenges, as well as completing the ballots.
The referral of Senate Bill 69 which is currently underway by the State Democratic Party and it’s sycophants comes as a result of partisan, political objections over a measure that Democrats had attempted to amend several times during the process.
The biggest problem? In their rush to judgement and to put the measure to a political campaign where they can spin it – it hits the pause button on the reforms, and means that they won’t take place in 2016 as intended by the legislature.
Much of the hullabaloo over the bill came because it limited the ability of state Democrats to place candidates on the ballot who had no intention of running – what were termed ‘placeholder candidates’ which gave them further time to try to find someone better.
Twice; once in the Senate, and once in the House, they proposed failed amendments to allow ‘party bosses’ to fill empty slots that no one in their party had petitioned for, a move which for the most cynical illustrated their breakdown as an organization able to run candidates for office. Other objections have been raised with regard to standardizing petition signatory counts and deadlines between party organizations and candidates.
Currently, Democrats are out in South Dakota seeking signatures to refer Senate Bill 69 to a vote of the people. While they squawk about it allegedly “punishing independents” or “making it tougher for Democrats to put people on the ballot,” what they aren’t telling voters is that a referral of SB 69 will nullify the reforms passed by this years’ legislature to provide more time for military and many overseas voters to return a ballot to South Dakota in time for the election. What they aren’t telling you is that referring SB 69 will keep us stranded in a flawed system with near impossible deadlines to provide ballots to the military for yet another election.
What they aren’t telling you is that every signature they collect on the Senate Bill 69 referral petition is a signature against more time for military voters to cast a ballot.
And that’s a good reason by itself to just say no to the referral of SB 69.
They should’ve expanded military ballot time as a single issue bill and not tied it in with the other BS.
You mean like our SD Constitution requires? Well then the Demo…RINOs couldn’t sneak things in by illegal omnibus bills.
Americans were so tired of the rule breaking Harry Reid Democrats and here we had our RINOs doing it with Daugaard’s numerous budget bloating omnibus bills. But that’s okay because THAT Chicago lawyer stole the “R” and cons people into thinking he’s conservative to get elected!
Whatever, Stace.
good lord enough
“Twice; once in the Senate, and once in the House, [state Democrats] proposed failed amendments to allow ‘party bosses’ to fill empty slots that no one in their party had petitioned for, a move which for the most cynical illustrated their breakdown as an organization able to run candidates for office.”
Which Democrats used the quoted phrase “party bosses”? Wouldn’t selection by convention be essentially the same method Republicans used to nominate Attorney General Marty Jackley and Secretary of State Shantel Krebs? Are those offices somehow less significant than the Republican Party’s imagined right to uncontested legislative races?
Much of this debate is based on a misunderstanding of the purpose of petition requirements. That purpose is to reasonably limit the number of candidates in a given race. It isn’t to prevent Democrats, Libertarians and Constitution Party members from running candidates in primaries and general elections funded by their own tax dollars, and it isn’t to prevent individual citizens of any affiliation from running independent campaigns entirely outside the machinations of party politics.
“Other objections have been raised with regard to standardizing petition signatory counts and deadlines between party organizations and candidates.”
Republicans can legally replace candidates until August, but over the last few years they’ve arbitrarily moved the filing deadline for independent candidates from August to mid June to early June to April, more than six months before the election. It’s hardly surprising that non-Republicans would find this kind of “standardizing” objectionable.
It’s also hardly surprising that Democrats would object to a law that increases their signature requirements by 150 percent (compared to 23 percent for Republicans), when Democrats are effectively excluded from most primary races and many general election races already.
As long as we’re so concerned about making sure military votes are counted, maybe we ought to show some concern about making sure there are actual contested races in which those votes can be cast.
and what you aren’t telling people is that SB69 was a power grab by the establishment to protect your precious little temple of do-gooding up in Pierre. You can all eat shit as far as I’m concerned. People like you are the reason people like me left South Dakota…
Emmett, please. You abandoned the state (and your Libertarian party chairmanship) and left because you wanted to go to a state with legal pot. You’ll be back as soon as you think you can see a paycheck for coming back.
Dude! Your in pothead paradise home of the Cannabis Cup where the shelves are always stocked with Doritos! Don’t be sad be happy! 🙂
“… SB69 was a power grab by the establishment to protect your precious little temple of do-gooding up in Pierre.”
I’d say SB 69 is less about do-gooding and more about Corey Brown’s raw lust for prestige and power.
Because Corey wanted more time for petition challenges? Please.
Pat while I don’t completely agree with all of the comments deleting posts that point out actual facts and do not go along with your narrative is childish