Voter Suppression In South Dakota Is Well Underway, Even Without SCOTUS’s Help

Legal Issues

from the subtracting-votes-by-adding-confusion dept

It may be almost impossible to devolve this country into a nation of slaveholders, but the Trump administration and all of its MAGA buddies are working hard to make sure a white person’s vote counts more than a vote cast by anyone else.

These bigots recently got an assist from the Supreme Court, which decided minorities can have their votes rendered meaningless so long as the people doing the gerrymandering don’t actually say the quiet part loud. Redistricting for the sole purpose of excluding as many non-whites as possible is perfectly legal if politicians never affirmatively state that the only reason they’re doing this is to make sure minorities can’t vote against their racist asses.

This is all part of what the state of South Dakota is doing now. Governor Larry Rhoden was never elected to his post. He was elevated after Kristi Noem was selected to head the DHS by Donald Trump. (Since she’s about as unemployed as any Trump appointee ever gets, I’m sure she wishes she was back running the state of South Dakota… into the ground.) His most recent brush with the electoral process saw him losing handily to Mike Rounds in the 2014 Senate race.

Rhoden actually needs to win an election if he wishes to remain South Dakota’s governor. And all the MAGA fellatio in the world doesn’t mean much when plenty of other MAGA acolytes are running against him.

So, there’s a mixture of things going on here. There’s Rhoden’s (and the state GOP’s) desire to engage with Trump’s election conspiracies — ones that claim (with zero facts in evidence) that a whole lot of undocumented immigrants are voting in state and local elections.

There’s also a nationwide attempt to deter voting by mail, because these votes more often side with the other team.

In response to completely made-up problems, the GOP passed a bill that Rhoden signed that says state residents must prove their citizenship to engage in local elections. If they can’t, they’re only allowed to participate in federal elections.

According to Rhoden and other GOP alarmists, that’s because too many people who aren’t citizens were granted permission to vote, thanks to what was likely nothing more than a clerical error. South Dakota may be small state in terms of population (~950,000 residents as of 2025), but the “problem” this vaguely written law supposedly addressed was even smaller.

Soulek said only one of the 273 noncitizens had ever cast a ballot. That was during the 2016 general election.

Those are the words of the Director of Elections Rachel Soulek, who works out of the Secretary of State’s office. The Secretary of State blamed this on clerical errors by the Department of Public Safety. The DPS provided the data that Governor Rhoden claims to evidence of widespread election fraud by non-citizens.

One illegal ballot. And that was likely an honest misunderstanding, rather than the criminal intent Rhoden and GOP buddies want to pretend it is.

But the law is on the books. Citizenship must be demonstrated to participate in state and local elections. The problem is that no one running these elections seems to agree what is or isn’t acceptable proof of citizenship.

Hughes County Finance Officer Thomas Oliva, who acts as that county’s auditor, said his office is requiring new voters to show the physical driver’s license.

“The main reasoning behind that is because it’s the back of the license. There’s no other identifying information on the back we can tie back to that person, so we felt it’s in the best interest to see the physical card,” Oliva told News Watch.

Haakon County Auditor Stacy Pinney said she has not run into any issues yet with voter registration but also will require new applicants to physically show the driver’s license.

“I’m going to make it a policy in my office that I want to see the actual card. If I have to verify it, I want to see the real deal,” Pinney told News Watch.

Meanwhile, Harding County Auditor Kathy Glines said her office will accept a photocopy of the driver’s license.

“They would have to send a front and back,” Glines told News Watch.

“I hope they would call before sending it by mail,” she added, referring to the limited hours the office is open.

Everyone appears to be making up their own rules because the law — and the Secretary of State’s office — are being deliberately vague about these requirements, especially in relation to absentee voting. And many people in the state may not know that the law only applies to people who have registered to vote after July of last year, so lots of people are going to be presenting IDs to precinct staffers even if they’re not legally required to do so.

This all adds up to exactly what Governor Rhoden and the GOP want: confusion over who is or isn’t allowed to vote, blended with another law passed by Rhoden that allows pretty much anyone to challenge someone else’s eligibility to vote.

The state could offer much-needed clarification. But it won’t.

As early and absentee voting for the primary election gets underway, Scott-Stoltz hopes officials in Pierre can provide more certainty on the registration process for new voters.

“We’re hoping for more clarification from the secretary’s office before the primary and are looking forward to working with the election board,” she said.

The secretary of state’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment by News Watch.

That’s a feature, not a bug. Those in power definitely prefer incumbent voters over new ones, much like incumbent voters prefer incumbents. They want to keep the jobs they have, rather than allow new voters to upset the incumbent apple cart. They all pretend they love the democratic system, but when it’s time latch onto another 2-4 years in power, they work together to reduce the electorate to the votes they can count on.

Filed Under: bigotry, larry rhoden, south dakota, trump administration, voter fraud, voter id law