The American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota held a “Know Your Rights” seminar for voters last night in Sioux Falls. For all of us voters, ACLU-SD offers these good tips to protect and exercise our right to vote:
- Check your voter registration status at least 30 days before the election.
- Locate your polling place and note the hours of operation.
- Consider voting early or absentee if possible. If you plan to vote at the polls, go early in the day to avoid the last-minute rush.
- Make sure your ID is valid and up to date.
- If anyone challenges you about voting, don’t get mad—get help [ACLU-SD, “Know Your Rights: Voting in South Dakota,” downloaded 2016.10.12].
Checking your voter registration status is important. If you haven’t voted for a few years, the Secretary of State may have purged your name from the rolls. If you’ve moved and forgotten to re-register, you may stroll down to your current county courthouse and find they don’t have you on their books. And heck, computers do eat data. So hit the Voter Information Portal via your Web browser or download the Vote605 app for your tablet or phone, punch in your name and birthdate (or, on Vote605, your ZIP), and make sure you’re on the voter roll.
If you’re not registered, hop to it! State law (SDCL 12-4-5) requires voters to register no later than fifteen days before the general election—this year, that’s Monday, October 24.
And remember: the poll workers will ask for your ID (SDCL 12-18-6.1 says South Dakota driver’s license, passport, other federal photo ID, tribal photo ID card, or student photo ID will do the job), but if you don’t have one on you, you can ask to fill out the affidavit (SDCL 12-18-6.2) and still cast your ballot.
If you have not voted in more than 8 years your registration is purged from the ACTIVE / INACTIVE voter list but your data is still on the system. Most do not need to go through the full re-registration process but do need re-activate your registration by contacting your County Auditor’s office.
I do not agree with the odd year purge of lazy voters. I only only encourages the politicians to ignore reaching out to voters who don’t understand the system for one reason or another. Our two party system is not doing its job to educate people on why they should vote for something. The education system no no longer teaches the basic fact each citizen is a shareholder in the American experiment called representative democracy. We don’t always get our way when we vote but we are part of a process where all of our voices need to be heard by voting. Be part of the solution and not the problem.