SECRETARY OF STATE ISSUES UPDATE REGARDING CAMPAIGN FINANCE DEADLINE
(Pierre, S.D.) – Secretary of State Monae L. Johnson would like to explain the campaign finance reporting process for the Pre-General report filing.
All statewide candidate committees, statewide political action committees, statewide political parties, statewide ballot question committees, and legislative committees were required to file the Pre-General Disclosure Report detailing all transactions from their last report through October 14, 2026. The deadline to file the Pre-General Report was October 19, 2026, by 5:00pm central. Reports can be submitted through the online Campaign Finance Reporting System or reports may be submitted on paper and emailed or mailed to the Secretary of State’s office.
Approximately 300 of the 600+ committees had not filed as of Monday morning. And approximately 150 committees still needed to file as of 4:20pm. Committees historically have always waited until the very last moment to file their reports.
Due to the number of committees that had not filed, SOS staff were working as fast as they could to process filings along with taking over 100 phone calls and even more emails from committees that had questions. Committees that file on paper always take longer to process and if a committee has supporting documents that they send via email those documents must be printed and matched up to the committee’s report before the SOS staff are able to upload to the website.
Secretary Johnson stated, “Ignorance is not an excuse for attacking my office or my staff because a person or group does not understand how campaign finance filings work. My staff has done an excellent job of processing 400 filings in the last two working days.”
More information about campaign finance may be found on the Secretary of State’s website at
https://sdsos.gov/elections-voting/campaign-finance/default.aspx.
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Ahlers doesn’t have itemized contributions.
Rhoden, no report.
What is going on?
As for “committees historically have always waited until the very last moment…”
THERE’S A REASON FOR THAT.
You CAN’T file until the report is due. You can’t even do your data entry and save it until the report is due.
You try to access the system and the message pops up on the screen “your report isn’t due yet.”
And that’s the end of it. You can’t get in until the report is due.
I found this particularly aggravating 2 years ago when I was a county party treasurer and was planning an overseas trip at the end of October. I did not want to file my county’s report using United Airlines WiFi, with my phone, nor did I want to buy or borrow a laptop to do the job. And I certainly didn’t want to spend time on vacation doing it.
As if that were not stupid enough, it’s not integrated, so that when a county party’s officers change, the name of the treasurer doesn’t. So this year the new treasurer contacted me because he could not get into the system and I had to change the password for him so he could get in. I can imagine circumstances in which the former treasurer knowing the new password might not be such a dandy idea, or it might make you wonder why the system needs passwords at all, if that’s how it’s going to work.
Just don’t accuse the county party treasurers of being slackers until you have tried to use that reporting system. It needs work.
Not true. The report opened up a week early and there were multiple reminders sent out to let us know when it was due/that it was opened early for people to start submitting. There was almost two weeks for committees to submit their reports.
Just make up random numbers to report. Statements, receipts, etc are not required. There’s no accountability anyway.
She couldn’t even find someone else to be treasurer? You know she doesn’t have a chance.
Lots of candidates serve as their own campaign chairs and treasurers.
I agree with Secretary Johnson that it’s unreasonable to expect handwritten reports to be instantaneously uploaded and approved. However, I am sympathetic to Representative Baxter: she obeyed every aspect of the law and still was accused by her opponent of breaking the law. I understand the argument that she could have submitted it sooner. But isn’t that like telling your employees you want them to wear more flare?
It would be nice if the website could show “Submitted” as the status when the report has been submitted, then it could change to “Approved” and show the link to the PDFs once it’s been approved. It would only take a few seconds for the SOS to mark the reports as submitted, so that’s not an unreasonable burden, and digitally submitted would be marked instantly. That would take some of the pressure off the SOS staff — they’ll approve it when they have a chance to approve it — but the candidate won’t be unfairly attacked in the meantime.
Another option would be to set the submission deadline to 10/15 and don’t allow the computer system to show reports on a rolling basis. Then, once 10/19 rolls around, all reports become visible all at once.
I suspect the current system can’t do either of these solutions, but it’s clearly time for a new system. Maybe the next SOS can ask for one of those options to be available?
yes it would be nice if the website told you your filing was “complete” or “submitted.” I learned to do the filing during business hours so I could call the SOS office and ask if they received it
Did anyone else NOT get the reminder email? I did in 2024, I hold the same position that I did then. Not seeing it in my email.