This is starting to make the rounds. And you could see this coming from a mile away.
From the reports I’m hearing, the balloting process is hitting a nightmare stage in some counties. Someone remarked to me that in one county, they had in the neighborhood of 150 different ballots they have to wrangle.
I’ve posted about this a few times, and it may blow up the system on the first outing.
There was a solution provided during the legislative session. Except, it involved a machine, so it was doomed to failure in this environment populated with luddites:
Brown County Auditor Lynn Heupel said the change would be beneficial for both voters and election workers.
“With the ballot on demand, what would happen is they pull that voter up and select that voter, it would automatically print their ballot for them so there wouldn’t be any possible confusion of picking the wrong ballot for the voter,” Heupel told KELOLAND News Tuesday.
As I wrote back in January, the changes in South Dakota Law have made a challenging situation for elections officials at the school, municipal, and county levels even more difficult with the addition of more races in counties. School district boundaries and city maps don’t always match up with county lines. And breaking it down even further are different ballots needed for Independents, Republicans and Democrats within the June primary.
Now, we’re going to find out in practical terms what the 2025 change in law did to over-complicate our election system. (Somehow, I think we’re going to see the balloting-on-demand system make a return visit next session.)
Early voting is the problem. It doesn’t allow for time to prepare the ballots and/or address legal challenges. Election Day voting must become the norm again. It’s the only way to address this problem.
The petition deadline is the problem, don’t blame the voters. Get rid of absentee and you may be sorry when you find yourself having to choose between voting or attending an out of state Dr appointment, giving birth to a child or having surgery.
These people are sooooooo concerned about LOCAL CONTROL, but in the next moment they take local control away. Hypocrites for sure.
Having all the elections at once is great for turnout. A couple things could help:
Why not have separate ballot sheets for state/county, city, and school elections? It doesn’t seem like a big deal to hand someone three ballots.
Also – the Legislature changed the petition period so that it will end earlier in March next year. That will help.
Part of the problem this year is that the petition period ending March 31, as late as possible, and the primary is June 2, as early as possible. So this is the shortest possible time period. Maybe the petition deadline should be just be 9 weeks before the primary or something?
Handing out three ballots invites too much human error
Having all elections on one day will not show that voter turnout will increase tremendously.
There may be certain elections that show increase, but voter apathy will reign supreme.
The legislature has known this would be an issue and they failed to act. The overwhelming comments were only concerned about candidates having enough time and knowing the deadline. 9 weeks is a great common sense suggestion I just don’t think that would have found support in the 25/26 legislative sessions
I’ll be voting for change in the primary
Who will you be voting for to change anything?
The change was there but 4 people who voted against the change are the same ones, and more who voted to get emergency clause help with this. Of the 4 were Hansen and Lems! Look it up HB1095, and say thanks for the mess!
There are only three other States that have a 45 day voting window, this isn’t a hard fix.
Here’s a thought: automate the process and bring it into the 21st century
Yeah but but MAGA but but elections stolen.
The dumb dumbs are in charge and this is what we get.
Lawsuit incoming…
Everyone has deadlines for whatever, you can do your prep work and then make adjustments. The main problem, it is GOVERNMENT, thus, no rush or concern to think ahead, just watch the clock for the paycheck. In my private business, there was no locking the door at 5; many a nite, I locked the door and worked til 10 pm…. you do what you gotta do to get the job done, but we are in a whole different environment than we were 20 yrs ago… nuf said!
When we’re supposed to have ballots in hand today and there are still petition challenges in court today that is an IMPOSSIBLE deadline problem not a work ethic problem.
The deadline has been the same every year. The last tuesday in march. its not breaking news.
Deadline is the same yes, last Tuesday in March which this year was March 31st. Legislature refused to get rid of the register mail option so candidates mailed partitions on March 31st. Then petitions have to arrive, be validated, other candidates have 5 days to challenge, then the challenged candidate can appeal that challenge decision in court. All of that has to happen before ballots can be finalized. So it’s literally April 15th and there is not a finalized slate of candidates certified yet because there was challenges.
Then the legislature said no to ballot on demand. So instead of proofing and finalizing on the 16th then printing in office on the 17th, the ballots are printed elsewhere and shipped. Yes the ‘deadline is the same every year’ but that deadline this year is also IMPOSSIBLE both of those things can be true
Have a conversation with your auditor. Or any local elected official. If you think their work day locks behind them at 5 oclock, you have no idea what public service actually entails.
I don’t know about you, but I was watching the Candidate list posted by the SOS. Julian Beaudoin was certified on Saturday the 4th. Justin McNeal and Toby Doeden were certified on Easter Sunday, the 5th.
other certifications came in on Good Friday, the 3rd, and Easter Monday, the 6th
They were working over the holiday weekend, and they deserve to be thanked for it.
They need to eliminate the Precinct Committee positions — they are an unnecessary headache adding so many additional variations of the ballot that do nothing but cause problem.
That would be wonderful
And those people don’t even show up in minnehaha county—it’s used as a weapon.
they don’t show up anywhere except at the state convention where they just cause problems and cost the party money. Then they disappear and refuse to do the job they were elected to do.
That was the Hansen plan all along. Load up the delegates with radicals and sway the election.
We saw that a few years ago when the radicals tried to put Haugaard in as LT GOV instead of Rhoden. After he got his A$$ kicked by Noem.
So I guess this is another sign to the small group of loons who voted for numbskulls in the primary in 2024. Those whackadoodles had no idea what they were doing and now we have a bad law that is going to open the state up for lawsuits. Hilarious that this came from the election integrity boneheads who have now caused a huge headache.
The bill was Mortensens 1130 that combined the elections.
He used the loons to push that through. Idea is fine and probably noble. SD just isn’t ready and the goofballs would stop any technology that would make 1130 work well
Nah, you can thank Alyward for that.
Just spoke with county auditor, the issue is basically nothing of what you posted about. Has nothing to do with the number of forms. Everything is completed at the county level and has been turned into the SOS.
Stop trying to make this some kind of advertisement for ballots on demand. Rubbish.
BTW the numbers of forms is actually a good thing because it means consolidated elections which means better turnout. Let the sausage get made and judge it by the taste, not the condition of the factory floor.
Ok share what the county auditor said the problem was.
Blame it on whatever level of government you want. Counties have to get all the ballots created, SOS office has to review them all, then they all need to be printed and mailed to the county. It’s a process that takes time. Knock out the printing and making portion of it, it’s going to take less time. And far less chance of a voter getting the wrong ballot.
This is the result of bad legislation that was driven by a group of people who want to see chaos in the elections. How else will they claim voter fraud! There were proposed bills to fix some of the concerns this session but even bad laws are hard to repeal. It’s got nothing to do with the auditors or frankly the SOS. This is solidly on the idiots in the legislature.
So let me guess. Your point of contact is the Minnehaha County Auditor?
Receipts or it doesn’t count. Donald Trump told me to verify and report back.
I want to really make note here: this is the fault of the Sec of State and NOT county Auditors….dont be casting blame on the Auditors when the failure is the SOS.
How about putting the blame on candidates who withdraw at the last minute because they were running interference for somebody else? They had no intention of running. They just wasted the taxpayers’ money. Then you have the candidates turning in petitions at the last minute, hoping nobody will notice and challenge them.
The system is a mess.
Some states have filing fees. You want your name printed on the primary ballot? Pay for it. The only thing the SOS has to do is make sure the check clears. Some states allow indigent candidates to circulate petitions instead.
Combined elections should be a good thing. And certainly less costly than having separate city and school elections. If this requires pushing the June primary back a few weeks in future years, then why not do that? Lots of states make later primaries work. I also like the idea of moving the silly precinct committee people from the ballot. That is an archaic system that meant something in the 80’s but is no longer relevant. It’s simply a way to game the Republican party convention. That whole process needs to be changed and more of our constitutional officers need to be on the primary ballot – AG and SOS in particular.
As for early voting, it doesn’t necessarily have to be 6 weeks – It could be 3 or 4 instead. Fortunately we don’t have the corrupt elections that some states do. But early voting can lend itself to problems, especially if it’s combined with mail in voting.
Only Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota have presidential primaries in June. Primary election day conflicts with weddings, graduations, vacations, etc. People are busy. Voter turn out is abysmal so the crazies have a field day.
By June, the nominees for POTUS have already been decided, so that race is irrelevant. This also reduces voter turn out in Presidential election years. Then if the primary candidates are unopposed, they don’t appear on the ballot. When sample ballots are posted in local newspapers, there’s nothing to see. This also reduces voter turnout.
In the past, delegates to national conventions were elected in the primary, but that no longer works because the delegates need to be vetted for Security reasons, and we need to submit that list of names sooner.
We elect precinct committee people in our primary who lose interest in the job (if they ever had any to begin with) before the end of June. No joke, you can’t get the people you elected in June to show up for a July 4 parade! (Why do we bother with these useless people?!
Our primaries have become ridiculous.
Ditch the all petition signings and challenges. Charge a filing fee, move the date of the primary to April at the latest, if not Super Tuesday, and put the names of every candidate on the ballot whether they are opposed or not, so people who don’t like them can leave them blank. If an unopposed candidate fails to get a respectable number of votes in the primary, he can declare placeholder status and step aside for his party to replace him.
This was mentioned above, but it’s worth saying again, this has nothing to do with the local races being on the same date. Those races don’t impact the ballot printing for county and state elections. It’s because the election calendar was compressed this year, and because lots of legislative candidates and the like turned petitions in at the last minute or mailed them in.
There are 2 really easy ways to fix this. 1) no more extended deadline for mailed petitions. You can mail them, but they better be there by the deadline or you drive to Pierre 2). Early voting for only 30 days (or less).
Problem solved.
Makes you wonder when Minnehaha will have there ballots with there precinct people issue
Those insaner than most want to cancel the elections, for fear of the normals awakening. They may succeed.
The establishment still complaining about precinct committee people cause they hate when the people have power over their government. Yep. This proves the establishment is behind trying to cause issues in our election process. I would not be surprised if the establishment changes the Absentee ballots to simple Mail ballots like California, just deliver ballots to anyone and everyone based on who has a driver license, and last recorded address causing more fraud. This is why we give the power to precinct committee men and women to show up at conventions to vet and determine who goes on the ballot for At-Large Office positions every two years. To root out the corruption.
The JOB of the precinct committee person is to run the political campaign in their precinct. They are responsible for all voter contact, making sure every eligible person in their precinct is registered, assisting with getting people to the polls, and poll-watching on Election Day..They should be going door to door, making phone calls, walking in parades, manning booths at county fairs, attending fundraisers, distributing yard signs, observing absentee voting in nursing homes, and anything else the county chairman, who is their supervisor, asks them to do to help all the candidates on the slate get elected, whether they ever personally supported them in the primary or not..
That is the JOB. They WORK under the direction of their county chairman. And if the County chairman tells them to sit down and shut up at the convention, they are supposed to do that, too.
They are not supposed to go to the convention just to disparage the primary winners, refuse to attend the fundraising events, create disturbances, and then disappear.
The worst RINOS in the party have been the Precinct Committee Men and Women who seek the position and then refuse to do the job once they get it.
Another point needs to be made, since the number of votes a county brings to the state convention is based on the number of votes cast in that county for the Republican candidate in the previous gubernatorial election, no matter who the candidate is, it is crucial to get out the vote for the next gubernatorial candidate, even if you can’t stand him. THAT is the job of the precinct people, to get out the vote.
And only one person is necessary to carry all of a county’s votes at the convention. 66 people can cast just as many votes as 600.
We don’t need Precinct Committee Men and Women at the convention at all. The convention functions as a fundraiser and a rally to kick off the campaign for the general election, and the Precinct people have not been contributing to that effort. If they are not going to spend money to attend all the fundraising events, pay the convention fees, and show unbridled enthusiasm for the entire slate of candidates, why are they there? We don’t need them there to vote, it would be much more efficient to have 66 county chairmen in a smaller room and let them do it.