McPherson State’s Attorney Austin Hoffman appears to have been appointed to Board of Elections

I saw an item from the kooky canvassers (a.k.a., the election goofballs) on facebook where for the last day they have been going absolutely apoplectic because it appears that McPherson County State’s Attorney, and son of former Republican State Rep. Charlie Hoffman, has been appointed to the State Board of Elections. While not on the SOS website yet, according to the State’s Board and Commissions website:

This was an excellent appointment, as Hoffman has experience with some of the battles that have taken place over the last year where the election hand-counting kooks have pressed to dump election machines, such as in this story from the Dakota Scout:

Hand-counting all of the June 4 primary ballots in McPherson County proved the process is a waste of time and money.

That was the take of McPherson County State’s Attorney Austin Hoffman after a secondary audit of ballots on Tuesday.

and..

The hand-counting resulted in four missed ballots (eight missed tallies) in the District 23 House Republican primary, Hoffman said.

“In my view, that’s not acceptable for an actual election,” he said.

Hoffman said concerns about vote tabulators have “no merit whatsoever.”

Read that here.

To say the election kooks hate him, might be an understatement, as evidenced from Rick Weible using “Pillow-guy Internet TV” to specifically call out Hoffman in the middle of a rant where he attacks then Governor Kristi Noem back in March of 2024:

“So I want to warn the rest of the country, you’d better be careful who your VP pick is going to be. I’m calling it out right now. And then also Representative Darreld(?), shame on you, Representative Rehfeldt, shame on you. Representative Reimer, the prime sponsor of this? You are disgusting. I want to make sure and call out every one of those, that they need to be primaried, immediately.”

and..

“And these two attorney’s – Sara Frankenstein, how dare you represent the laws..in South Dakota.. and not be there for the people? And then a special.. special one.. Austin Hoffman, how dare you go to your county commissioners and sit there and quote statutes that are actually repealed and try to use that as an excuse to dee-reel.. derail the petition process in your county and the decisions making of your county. I would implore those county commissioners to start an investigation to find out what other lies that he’s told them.”

Read that here.

And don’t think Austin sits there and just takes it – because he’s not afraid to point out facts, and call them out for their BS:

Over the last several years, Mr. Klipfel and other members of the Executive Board have used those positions to push personal agendas. They have used the McPherson County Republican Executive Board as a vehicle to move forward an anti-CO2 pipeline agenda, an unfounded election integrity agenda, and most recently to push a blatantly false and incorrect narrative that myself, as State’s Attorney, am attempting to push a resolution that would violate First Amendment freedom of speech rights. The first two items I mention are inappropriate. The latter is absurd.

and..

“I have no issues with someone disagreeing with me politically or unhappy with the decisions I make as McPherson County State’s Attorney. Everyone has the right to their opinion. But using one’s role as Chairman of the McPherson County Republicans to make incorrect and false accusations, to push personal agendas, or to complain about legal bills they created, is an entirely different story.”

(You can read that here.)

In other words, he’s not afraid to face off with these election nonsense goofs, using logic and the law. So they don’t care for that.

Of course, they had some choice comments about his new position:

Not thinking that’s how that works..  Oh, here’s a great one:

Uh oh!  “File a complaint with Marty Jackley.”  I hate to tell this gal that Marty is well aware of Austin. And knows just what to do with him:

Attorney general announces first Open Meetings Commission hearing in nearly four years
(From SD Searchlight)

The current five-member panel consists of State’s Attorneys Austin Hoffman of McPherson County, Katelynn Hoffman of Turner County, Lance Russell of Fall River/Oglala Lakota County, Michael Smith of Clay County, and Emily Sovell of Sully County.

He appoints him to boards and commissions as well!   We’ll see how far they get with that one.

So, Congratulations appear to be in order to Austin for his apparent appointment!

(And apologies to him on behalf of not-crazy South Dakotans in advance for what he’s going to have to listen to on the Board of Elections.)