South Dakota Secretary of State Monae L. Johnson announces that the Secretary of State’s Office’s proposed legislative package for the 2024 features bills promoting election transparency, election worker protection and clarifying residency.
“Our legislative package is designed to provide confidence in elections and give those who run elections the protections they deserve,” said Secretary of State Johnson, “Our office looks forward to working with the Governor, county auditors, and legislators on the passage of these bills.
SB 17: An Act to modify the residency requirements for voter registration and declare an emergency. Last year the Legislature amended SDCL 12-4-1 to state that in order to register to vote a person needs to maintain a residence in South Dakota for at least 30 days prior to registering. The problem is that there is no time frame for when the 30 days is calculated. Is it 30 days immediately prior to registering or is it 30 days in the person’s lifetime? The proposed amendment places an identifiable and easily calculated 365-day time frame.
SB 18: An Act to allow the secretary of state to share information from the statewide voter registration file. If passed, this would allow the secretary of state to share voter registration information with other states in order to try and identify any voter who, for whatever reason, is registered in more than one jurisdiction. Currently, information is shared but on a limited basis. “This bill is to fulfill a campaign promise of working to clean up the voter rolls through sharing voter information with other states” explained Secretary Johnson.
SB 20: An Act to establish the crime of threatening or intimidating an election official or election worker and declare an emergency. As we receive reports from other states, we are given more and more instances where election workers are being threatened or intimidated. Election workers are vital to fair and free elections and by doing a public service they should be protected. This bill helps protect them. “Everyone’s safety, from the county auditor and staff to the election workers and poll watchers, are important to me and this bill will help establish that” states Secretary Johnson.
SB 48: An Act provide for the disclosure of a cast vote record and ballot images as a public record and declare an emergency. A cast vote record (CVR) is an electronic record of a voter’s ballot contest selections that is created when the paper ballot is run through a tabulator. A CVR can then be compared to the ballot image to ensure that the tabulating machine read the ballot correctly. Presently there is litigation concerning this issue. This bill would clear up the issue for 2024 and into the future. Only counties who have purchased the required software would be able to produce a cast vote record. “One of my campaign promises was to help make CVR and ballot images public documents and bring the confidence of our elections back to South Dakotans,” said Secretary Johnson, “These records, along with post-election audits, will prove that the tabulators are accurately tabulating the votes.”
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