Legislative petitioning begins on Saturday. Minnehaha County Auditor announces might have accurate voter lists 2 months later.

The Argus has a story this morning which has huge implications for people who will be running for state legislative office.

The Minnehaha County Auditor has announced that they won’t have accurate voter lists for the new legislative districts until February 28th – nearly 2 months later!

The changes include the addition of one legislative district encompassing the northwestern part of Sioux Falls for a total of nine districts in Minnehaha County and new boundaries for each of those districts, said county auditor Ben Kyte at Tuesday’s commission meeting.

“If you were a smaller county you would go into your database and change each one of those,” said Kyte. “That’s not practical for 60,000 voter changes.”

and..

Kyte pointed out the boundary changes create challenges for individuals looking for an updated registration list. Individuals interested in running for office and are seeking a voter registration list at the beginning of January won’t be able to get an updated list until after February.

Read it all here.

Ugh. What a mess. This seems an awful lot like all the times we’ve read about the Minnehaha County Auditor being unable to count the votes on election night anymore.

Now practically on the eve of it happening, they’re announcing that candidates who start running for office on Saturday won’t have voter lists available until the end of February?

Maybe this would have been good to talk about before the week where petitioning begins? Amazing.

What are the implications? First and foremost, This means that candidates could turn in petitions with errors, potentially causing issues with the validity of their petitions.

Luckily, petitions can be turned in to the Secretary of State until 5:00 p.m. on March 29, 2022, and candidates are able to turn in additional signatures up until that point. But it will cause headaches for everyone, especially it will be 2 months until they can be sure their petitions are accurate & sufficient.

What’s my advice for candidates running for the State Legislature?  (At least on the GOP side)

• Whatever your count is for the numbers needed to run for office in your district – at least double it. Obtain 100-125 signatures. You should be doing far more than the minimum anyway.
• Know your district’s new map by the precincts, not by the overall district map. The questionable areas that they’re going to be fiddling around with are split precincts. You can always collect your signatures in precincts that aren’t split.
• You MUST check your signatures on your petitions when the lists are finally available. Make copies before you send them in, so you can double check.
• You can turn in more names until the deadline. At least at the point when they do get lists available, you’ll have a month to fix any errors and add signatures.
• Don’t sweat it. Errors happen, and problems arise. Just be ready to respond.
• FOLLOW THE RULES.
• And for gosh’s sake, if you are sending in anything during the last two weeks before March 29th, SEND IT REGISTERED MAIL no matter what the well intentioned clerk at HyVee mail desk or the post office tells you. Certified mail doesn’t cut it.

Any questions?