Category: Political News

While Wismer gave South Dakota Democrats $4600, the SDDP kicked a check for $23,000 to Kansas Democratic Party

@SoDakCampaigns

Now this was a curious thing I noted on the South Dakota Democrat Party’s Year End Report. While Susan Wismer gave South Dakota Democrats $4600, the South Dakota Democratic Party was shipping money out of state to the tune of $23,000 to Kansas Democratic Party

donations_from_dems

As Indicated in the year end report filed with the Secretary of State’s office for the period during the last 2 weeks of the election through the end of the year, State Democrats received donations from various people, including $4600 from the Wismer for Governor campaign. (I’m assuming it was for printing, since that’s how Wismer coded it in her campaign finance report, as opposed to a contribution to the party, as the party had coded it)

But during the same period Susan and others were paying in as they raced to the finish line, the State Democratic Party cut a check – and not just a small one – to the Kansas Democratic Party, totaling $23,000 .At the same time they made various token donations of $1838 to Denny Pierson, and $500 to their Secretary of State Candidate.

kansas_dems

So, why were South Dakota Democrats sending $23,000 to another state at a time when their candidates were probably looking in couch cushions for money?  I’m sure Denny Pierson, or Angelia Schultz could have found a way to use $23,000, not to mention Susan Wismer, or the dozens of Democrats running legislative races.

Now, to be fair, South Dakota Democrats weren’t the only ones who kicked a check down to the land of Dorothy & Toto. The Louisiana Democratic Party joined South Dakota’s donation with even more:

kansas_dems

So, what were the sources of the funds the SDDP sent off to another state? That’s a good question. Standing out in the year end report was a big check from United Auto Workers at the same time for 20k….

uaw

But the remaining $3000 is a bit more mysterious. No money from the Democrat Governor’s Association or other national level entity. Just the 20k check from the union. But, I’m sure the source is in there somewhere.

So, we have the who and most of the what at this point…. just leaving the why.

Why did South Dakota Democrats send off $23,000 to another state?

It likely was a way for an organization(s) friendly to Democrats to get around more restrictive campaign finance laws in other states by routing federal funds through a state political party with lax campaign finance laws. They in turn send it to another state political party in a state with stronger laws that wouldn’t normally allow them to take such a large donation directly from that type of organization.

Cool, huh?  Those are the odd loopholes in campaign finance that are often exploited to get money to a campaign effort that groups are otherwise topped out on donating to.

But of course, I’m sure Democratic candidates didn’t need the $23,000 their state party sent off to another state. I’m sure they got plenty of assistance from the State Democratic Party to run the kind of campaigns they could be proud of, despite losing 4 more legislative seats, and giving Republicans total control over all the statewide elective offices.

What do you think?

State Rep Kevin Killer’s PAC has some confusing campaign finance reports

@SoDakCampaigns

Remember Ann Tornberg’s excessive listing of unitemized contributions? Unitemized totals far out of proportion to what the itemized contributions were?  Here’s one that’s even worse. Democratic State Representative Kevin Killer’s SD NDN Election efforts PAC:

SD NDN PAC 2014 Year end Report

Killer’s Year End PAC report noted $16,618 in itemized contributions.  And an eye-popping $136,710.54 in un-itemized contributions.  A closer look at the report provides some clues as to the source of much of this funding.   Acting as a intermediary, it would appear that most or all of this funding comes through ACT Blue:

actblue

If you look at the itemized report on the embedded pdf file above, it appears that more of the itemized contributions came from out-of-state.

The curious part is that Act Blue South Dakota IS registered as a South Dakota PAC. So… why are these donations appearing to arrive through ACT Blue coming in as individual donations, and not listed as a PAC to PAC donation?

Regardless, it looks like most of the funds raised by Killer & Act Blue went for overhead, with over $113,000 of the funds spent on Salaries, $10,221 on Travel, $6,534 for Act Blue to act as middle-man for fundraising, and $4508 on meals.

ndn_operating_expenses

Curiously, for an organization that raised and spent as much as they did, I’d never heard of them. At the time of the pre-general report on October 24th, they had a whopping $1000 in their account. And then just like magic they claim that from October 22nd through the end of the year, they raised well over $100,000 for their efforts.

But, there are some inconsistencies that are coming up in those claims that would contradict what was reported to the Secretary of State’s office. According to the Secretary of State:

12-27-22. Persons and entities required to file campaign finance disclosure statements–Time for filing–Violation as misdemeanor. A campaign finance disclosure statement shall be filed with the secretary of state by the treasurer of every:
(1) Candidate or candidate campaign committee for any statewide or legislative office;
(2) Political action committee;
(3) Political party; and
(4) Ballot question committee.
The statement shall be signed and filed by the treasurer of the political committee or political party. The statement shall be received by the secretary of state and filed by 5:00 p.m. each February first and shall cover the contributions and expenditures for the preceding calendar year. The statement shall also be received by the secretary of state and filed by 5:00 p.m. on the second Friday prior to each primary and general election complete through the fifteenth day prior to that election. If a candidate is seeking nomination at the biennial state convention, the candidate or the candidate campaign committee shall file a campaign finance disclosure statement with the secretary of state by 5:00 p.m. on the second Friday prior to any biennial state convention. Any statement filed pursuant to this section shall be consecutive and shall cover contributions and expenditures since the last statement filed.

and..

A violation of this section is a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Read it here.

Notice the dollar amounts that they attribute as being raised by the South Dakota NDN Election Efforts PAC and the date in this Article from Daily KOS:

Fri Oct 10, 2014 at 11:00 AM PDT
When Natives vote Democrats win. You can help 9 reservations in South Dakota GOTV to save the Senate
by navajoFollow for Daily Kos

GOTV takes money and there’s not much of that on the reservations, especially at Pine Ridge. Which is why Daily Kos is asking those who can afford it to contribute to this effort.

On Thursday we raised more than $12,000 of our $50,000 goal for the South Dakota NDN Election Efforts PAC to fund the efforts for Great Plains project. Today we wanna continue that effort to buy fuel for the bus, feed the drivers, buy cash cards to support the volunteers and purchase much-needed radio time to spread the word about the GOTV effort. Everyone on the rez listens to their local radio station.

Read that here. That was on the 10th…. which was before the pre-general. So, why are there no donations totalling $12,000 reflected in the report.?

And look at this at this article from Daily KOS five days later:

Wed Oct 15, 2014 at 08:28 AM PDT
Control of the Senate runs through South Dakota reservations, and you’re helping GOTV
by Meteor Blades
Five minutes before I posted this, 6,062 of you had contributed $71,730 for South Dakota NDN Election Efforts. And the thanks you get? We’ve raised the goal from $75,000 to $100,000. The money will help pay for the  enthusiastic voter registration campaign being run by the Great Plains Get Out the Native Vote on the state’s nine American Indian reservations.

Read that here.

Or this article which would be the “fifteenth day prior to that election” as cited above.

Mon Oct 20, 2014 at 11:51 AM PDT
South Dakota ground game fleshes out as GOP rushes in reinforcements
by kos

Just a few moments ago, supporter #10,000 gave to the NDN Election Efforts PAC, the GOTV operation focused on American Indian reservations in the now-pivotal state of South Dakota. The $124,691 raised is slightly above my initial goal of $50,000 (which I considered overly optimistic at the time), and puts us well within reach of the PAC’s entire 2014 GOTV budget of $200,000.

South Dakota Rep. Kevin Killer, head of the PAC, sends me an update on what the fresh funds are allowing them to do.

Read that here.

The articles claim they had raised Over $12,000 on October 10th, $71,730 on October 15th, and $124,691 on October 20th – the last day that’s supposed to be included in the pre-general report. So, why does the pre-general report say on page 4 that, as of October 20th, they had only raised $1000 from an out of state PAC, and claiming that only $41.16 had been raised in unitemized funds?

That would appear to be a very well documented contradiction. By Democrats’ own reports, the funds were in-hand, and being spent during the time covered by the report to help elect Senator Rick Weiland.  But.. amazingly, none of that money is reported for the time period it they said it was raised in, via their own news reports. They only show up in they year end report due months later?

What are your thoughts? Is it time for some spot checking on reports by the Secretary of State?

So, how did all those Libertarians do in campaign finance?

@SoDakCampaigns

With end of year campaign finance reports due, I thought it would be interesting to look back and see how those plucky upstarts over at the Libertarian Party did in raising money to run for office, since they fielded more Candidates than the state Democrat Party did.

Did I say plucky? I think I might have meant yucky.  An examination of the reports shows that there literally was no money raised or spent universally across all of their candidates. The one who raised the most, John English, who ran for office of School and Lands Commissioner, was said to have dropped out before election day.

Having filed his termination report in October might also be an indicator.

Here’s what I found among the candidates. There is still a possibility that a report may yet come in, especially from Chad Haber, who has never filed a report of expenditures. But I think you get the hint of how they all did if you review the reports. Links are to the reports I reviewed:

What do you think? All show, and no go, or was that the start of a grand experiment for the Libertarians?

The New Butte County GOP. And the strange tale of the old.

@SoDakCampaigns

party_loyalty_OathRemember the recent story I did on the loyalty oaths being demanded of candidates by the Butte County Republican Chairman?

The one where they placed an ad, and went after elected officials in January for not taking their oath back in July:

Am I the only one who remembers those days of yore when Republican party organizations worked to get Republicans elected? Instead of beating them up, and trying to throw them to the wolves?

Read that here.  Yup. That’s the one.

I received a note yesterday from the *New* Chairman of the Butte County GOP Lon Carrier. Lon informed me of the election, detailing that the meeting was held at the Belle Inn in the county seat of Butte County with 16 or the 25 Central Committee members present.

Lon Carrier was elected Chair. Heather Plunket (also State’s Attorney) was elected Vice Chair. Sherry Smeenk as Secretary. Francis Hays was elected as Treasurer. Lt Col (retired) Fred Wells is now the County’s State Precinct Committeeman and Mary Kay Budmayr is State Precinct Committeewoman.

The meeting was conducted by Dave Roetman, from the Minnehaha Co/State GOP, and John Teupel (Lawrence Co) and Marilynn Oakes (Custer Co) were also there to observe and assist in certifying.  Another reason they were there was to leave no doubt of the group being recognized as the official Republican organization in the County.

In the face of impending elections, the word I’m hearing is that before the ones officially conducted, there may have been some alternate elections hastily ‘held’…. contrary to county and state party bylaws. Which generated this letter:

pietela etter

Somehow, holding an election without notice and not telling the central committee memebers is frowned upon. And not recognized.

The official, and recognized chair, Lon Corrier indicated that the new Butte County GOP organization is fired up, and ready to get to work. And as Lon quipped to me –  they’re ready to “plug on ahead getting good Republicans elected instead of trying to have them pledge loyalty.”

And that’s how we get Republicans elected in South Dakota!

Dem’s minimum wage increase to benefit students causing service cuts for students.

@SoDakCampaigns

Remember the minimum wage increase promoted by State Democrats and passed by voters? Democrats poo-poohed arguments that it mainly benefitted high school and college students who are working these low wage, part-time positions while they also go to school.

Well, here’s a real world example of exactly who the measure is hurting. In the January 14th edition of the SDSU Collegeian student newspaper, the top of the fold story is titled “New Minimum Wage Affects Union Hours”  and discusses how the SDSU Student Union has been forced to cut hours so as to remain on budget directly as a result of the minimum wage:

Students learned this week that the Union will close at 10 p.m. daily. This cuts two hours off of the former hours in order to adjust, for the minimum wage increase that went into effect Jan. 1 according to this week’s Monday morning message sent out by Students’ Association President, Caleb Finck.

and…

In order to compensate for the minimum wage increase from $7.25 to $8.50 per hour, Novotny along with other administration, including the Student Union Advisory Committee, had to make changes in the facility, Novotny said The. changes need to compensate for a total of $30,000 in student labor.

and..

If The Union goes back to closing at midnight next year, funding for the facility will have to increase. This money will most likely come from a General Activity Fee increase, meaning that students will have to pay more to keep the building open later.

Read it all here.

Cutting hours to remain on budget… and if they want those hours back, they’re going to face a general activity fee increase, pushing their tuition up higher.

Cuts in services and increased tuition fees. All I have to say is to remind them to remember who made this happen. The South Dakota Democrat Party.

Gordon Howie: The “Powerful Politician” Annette Bosworth is being Silenced.

@SoDakCampaigns

Powerful Politician Silenced?

…One in particular is Annette Bosworth, who is facing 12 felony charges over alleged “petition violations”.

Read it here.

BWAAA HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

I’m not sure what’s funnier, Howie’s continued embrace of former Sado/Masochism pornographer Lee Stranahan as a valid news source, or calling Annette Bosworth a powerful politician?

 

Democrat party floating idea to move candidate picks to party HQ in Sioux Falls.

@SoDakCampaigns

I had some time this morning, and listened in to one of the pieces of legislation I’m following, Senate Bill 69 which was heard in Senate State Affairs this morning.

SB 69 is a bit of an omnibus bill regarding petition requirements, including a proposal to move the start of the petitioning process back to December 1 of the year preceding the election. I’m in favor of parts, oppose parts (specifically removing the Registered mail submission of petitions), and think the exercise is a worthwhile discussion to have.

One of the most notable things from this morning was the testimony against the bill by the ACLU lobbyist dujour, who will likely move on to other things within a year or so as most of their people do. But this moment’s ACLU Person, “Libby,” was there mainly to introduce their expert opponent and to present a bill amendment.

Their person, the writer of “Ballot Access News” spoke. And the bill amendment that the ACLU was supposed to have ready? They didn’t have it prepared.  At all.  Regardless, what the Ballot Access person spoke of was a desire by the ACLU to amend the law to allow new political parties to organize as late as June or July for inclusion on the fall ballot.

And it gets better.

The ACLU apparently wanted not just late statewide ballot access for new parties organizing as late as July, but they want to change the law to give them the ability to select local legislative candidates at convention. That was bad.

And it got worse. In later committee discussion, Democrat Senator Bernie Hunhoff suggested going even further.

The path that Senator Hunhoff started to explore in committee discussion on the bill was one that raised my eyebrows. Senator Hunhoff floated the concept of removing the concept of placeholder candidates – a tool Democrats are using in greater and greater numbers as time goes by in an attempt to fill gaps left by the lack of interest of people in running as Democrats – and instead allow the political parties to fill the empty ballot positions.

I almost had to do a double take, and internally asked, “Is he kidding?”

In effect, it would allow them to nearly forego the petition process entirely, and allow whoever is in charge of the disorganized mess at Democrat HQ in Sioux Falls to find a list of 105 people acceptably liberal, and anointed by party elders, to just be their candidates.

So, why is the Democrat party floating idea to move candidate picks to party HQ in Sioux Falls? I’m sure they’d like to pass laws that way too, but there are valid reasons we don’t. Really, how is a candidate finding 25 or 30 people to sign a petition to nominate them to run burdensome in the least? (Dems, it might typically be far fewer)

It would seem that the petitioning process is an incredibly nominal step, but an important one to ensure that the person running is there to represent the people of their district, as opposed to whoever from that zip code sent a donation into the Democratic party. It has the important step of broadening the representation the candidacy provides. Personally, (except for Lt. Gov) I’d like to see most of the constitutional level candidates have to circulate petitions too, but I might face opposition going that way as well.

So whether the suggestion comes from the ACLU, or State Democrats, any suggestion of stripping the petitioning requirement is something that South Dakotans should take a dim view of.  And if gathering a few names is too large of a burden for some, then maybe they aren’t the kind of people anyone wants in a position of power.

Did anyone tell Rick the campaign ended a few months back?

@SoDakCampaigns

In the last day or so, the Mitchell Newspaper had a column from losing Senate Candidate Rick Weiland, that seems a little too much like he’s still in campaign mode:

In fact, I cannot think of one reason to build this pipeline other than to placate big oil and its big money. I can think of lots of reasons not to.

Did you know, TransCanada, a foreign oil corporation, can take South Dakota farm and ranch land without landowner permission through eminent domain?

Did you know that Keystone One, built in 2010, leaks on a regular basis — some big leaks, too — and that Keystone XL is going to be built over the Ogallala Aquifer, a vital source of water for our region?

And did you know, that the energy it takes to extract the tar sand oil, liquefying it for transport, refining and shipping it overseas for sale, will dump 100 million tons of additional carbon into the atmosphere?

When the threat of climate change has 99 percent of the scientists in the world seriously worried about the future of the planet and the human race, this greed is inexcusable and needs to be exposed and rejected. We should be transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy, not doubling down on Keystone.

Read it here.

“Big Oil, Big Lie.”  Did anyone point out to Rick that no one bought this same tired rhetoric in the campaign, so he suffered a “Big Loss?”  South Dakotans didn’t buy it then, and they still aren’t interested in smoking what he’s offering.

2-time SOS Candidate Lori Stacey demands revote. And claims HIV is a complete hoax.

@SoDakCampaigns

Before we start, I’d better present you with the bona fide, ironclad, tinfoil, official Lori Stacey disclaimer that any occurrences of voter fraud are done by people out of state, and are usually done without the participation, knowledge or consent of any of the candidates or local/state election officials. And if you say anything to the contrary, it will be met with official Lori Stacey legal action:

DISCLAIMER: Any findings of probable computer-programmed election fraud presented in this story are not to be assumed, represented or characterized as an accusation against any candidate or local/state public official by this author. In most cases, electronic manipulation of voting results is accomplished by parties outside of the state in which the election took place and are usually done without the participation, knowledge or consent of any of the candidates or local/state election officials. Any attempt to smear, harass, accuse or defame author with claims to the contrary will be met with legal action.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, earlier this month, South Dakota Constitution Party Secretary of State Candidate Lori Stacey wrote a story and put it on-line, partially on the basis that according to the results in her race, the US Senate ticket, as well as the Mike Myers/Lora Hubbel gubernatorial ticket, (if you jumble enough numbers together) it’s proof that they shouldn’t have lost by THAT much.

Of the alternative candidates, the ones that were most actively campaigning throughout the state were the Gubernatorial Independent ticket of Myers/Hubbel, US Senate Independent candidates Larry Pressler and Gordon Howie, Libertarian Attorney General candidate Chad Haber and myself, Lori Stacey, as a CP candidate for Secretary of State. Although Gordon Howie is a registered Republican that ran as an Independent, he was clearly the most conservative US Senate candidate in the race in a historically conservative state. Yet, he was obviously black-listed from so much of the media attention that numerous articles in the press reported the contest to only be a 3-way, rather than a 4-way race. Gordon Howie got a feel for what it is shamefully like for a 3rd Party candidate in America today, without even being one. In numerous speeches, Howie exposed that the Rounds campaign had on more than one occasion tried to pressure him into dropping out of the race. Mind you, all that effort directed toward a candidate that was supposedly only polling at 3%. His final vote count was……….you guessed it, only 3.03%. Not uncommon to have predicted this shocking result and the topic of one of Richard Charnin’s books about forcing vote counts to match fraudulent polls. In fact, the campaigns of Howie, Myers and Stacey all received calls from voters that had participated in a well-publicized poll and had stated that we were not even included in said poll for which we supposedly all got suspiciously low polling numbers.

Read that here.

Huh? What? So, help me understand this – In the most conspiratorial manner possible, Lori Stacey asserts that because Gordon Howie polled at 3%, and his vote count was 3.03%, it’s evidence that the vote count was forced to match a “fraudulent poll?”

Might it be possible – and arguably a more plausible explanation – that Howie polled at 3% and received that same portion of the vote because that’s all that would vote for him?  And this kind of nuttiness gets even better.

Not only is an increasing share of the total a problem but in the raw precinct data for the US Senate, Governor and SOS races, in a majority of cases in which the Republican candidates won the county, we can easily see that most of the other candidates had tremendously higher percentages of the votes in the smaller precincts and then absolutely plummeted in the largest precincts where very frequently only the Republican candidates skyrocketed. To get your head around this problem, imagine a precinct with only 30 votes cast. An alternative candidate that supposedly had a true vote of only 3% statewide somehow often found 6-29% in the smallest precincts but only 1-3% in the largest precincts. In a precinct with only 30 votes cast, a candidate receives a little over 12% or 4 votes. Yet a precinct of 1,000 voters, the same candidate only receives 1.5% or 15 votes leaving a whopping 985 votes up for grabs. This type of pattern seen repeatedly around the state defies logic and is statistically improbable. It is another key red flag in suspected election fraud as votes are usually flipped where there will be the most bang for the buck.

Lori attempts more conspiracy by claiming it’s evidence of election fraud that 3rd party candidates received higher percentages in small precincts, but smaller percentages in larger precinct. Maybe it’s a simple fact that a massive majority didn’t want to vote for candidates who didn’t advertise, or staged suicide reenactments. But there’s always a chance of one voter not paying attention.

And in conclusion…

In conclusion, taking into account all of the information that has been presented regarding various types of voter suppression, under votes, possible dropped/uncounted votes by a computerized, secretive vote count for which there is NO AUDIT of any percentage of votes via hand-counting, the outrageous re-creation of ballots, voters that did not receive their absentee ballots, ballots kept in someone’s home, press reporting results before polls had closed, voters that were not notified of changes in polling locations, statewide would-be candidates wrongfully denied ballot access, the mathematical analysis, etc,etc,etc. CONSIDERING ALL OF THE ABOVE, not even a hand recount could capture the true voice of South Dakota voters!

The only rightful remedy is to hold a new statewide election and hand-count the ballots in public view at the local precincts before the ballots ever leave the buildings which is exactly the only fully transparent and accurate way fair elections were to be conducted. Make sure everyone is properly notified of their correct polling location and that everyone requesting an absentee ballot receives one in a reasonable amount of time.

The only rightful remedy is to hold a new statewide election and hand-count the ballots in public view at the local precincts before the ballots ever leave the buildings.  Three etceteras in a row. She must mean business.

Is there anyone holding their breath until this demanded re-vote happens? Me neither.

But don’t intimate that any of this widespread fraud was done with “the participation, knowledge or consent of any of the candidates or local/state election officials.” Because you may face a Lori Stacey “legal action.”

Bonus Lori Stacey Moment – I saw this today which prompted me to go look at her examiner page. And just as you’ll note above, there’s some stuff you can’t unsee. Here, former Secretary of State Candidate Lori brings us new health care news that “HIV has been proven to be a complete hoax…”

LoriStaceyHoax…and, that while the HIV Virus is a hoax, the AIDS drugs that doctors put patients on is a “way for big Medicine and big Pharma to make a lot of money” and “then eventually reduce the population.”

It kind of makes you want to find the 10,258 people who voted for her in the 2014 Secretary of State elections, and ask them “What in the hell were you thinking?”