Legislators are officially planning to take up the issue of residency… but not, as far as we know, the issue of any legislators’ voting residency. Instead, legislators will consider weakening residency requirements for students via House Bill 1007, The bill appears to fix an oversight in statute and clarifies that anyone living in the state who receives veteran’s educational benefits from Uncle Sam is automatically a resident for the purpose of calculating tuition. Normally, one must live here for twelve months before qualifying for resident student status and the cheaper tuition that accompanies it. Based on current state and , HB 1007 appears to apply to qualified survivors and dependents who receives veteran’s educational benefits.
The bill includes no provision to allow a veteran to qualify immediately as a resident of the state for voting purposes…. because South Dakota does not set any minimum time one must live here before voting. If you move here in May, you can vote in June (assuming, of course, you beat the 15-day deadline we all have to beat to be on the rolls before a given election.
HB 1007 says nothing about granting veterans instant residency for the purpose of serving in the Legislature. As we know, one must be a resident of the state for two years prior to the election to serve in the Legislature. South Dakota natives who have just left the service don’t really have to worry aboiut that: Register to vote in South Dakota, then join the Navy and see the world for 20 years, and you can remain a South Dakota resident for voting purposes the entire time and are eligible to run at any time during that service or immediately after you leave the service and move back to the state, even if you were to get out of the service on November 1, get back to Sioux Falls to check your P.O. Box on November 2, and then go vote for yourself in the District 10 House on November 3.
Now I’m just thinking out loud here, but if we are willing to thank veterans for their service by granting them instant student residency (and I see no big reason not to pass HB 1007), couldn’t we make a case that we should further thank them for their service by granting them instant and retroactive residency to allow them to serve in the Legislature, if they so desire?
Boy, I do look forward to conversations about residency in the 2019 Session.
“beat the 15 day deadline we all have to beat to be on the rolls before any given election.”
Just wondering, can a nonresident, say a Nebraskan, come to Springfield and register 15 days prior, go back home, and return just to vote? I realize it’s immoral, unethical, etc., but could they get away with it? What’s stopping them? Maybe a bigger place where a stranger wouldn’t stand out as much. Yankton?
BTW, it’s a good bill, as far as it goes. A point to the SDGOP.
My daughter has lived in China, except for a few trips back, since 2005. The last time I talked to her about this, she was voting a South Dakota ballot, though she told me she doesn’t vote in elections she doesn’t know anything about. Mainly she votes for President and top of the ticket races she knows something about, or can research easily. She used to follow SD politics a bit, but less and less over the years. She says there is a federal law allowing ex-pats to vote in whatever state they claim as a domicile, even if they haven’t lived there for some time. The Democrats actually run a separate primary for ex-pats, but I’m not sure how they divvy up delegates for that.
Donald, I welcome your daughter’s continued exercise of her legal right to vote in South Dakota elections. We need more voters with good sense and a global perspective!
Debbo, to your Nebraska/Springfield raider question, the obvious legal answer is no, she’d have to establish residency of some sort. Complete innocently, a person could come to Springfield, “fix[] his or her habitation” and declare some shack in Springfield the place “to which the person, whenever absent, intends to return,” register and vote, but then get a surprise job offer and have to go back to Nebraska. That person could vote until she leaves.
Thinking nefariously, I’m not sure what legal check would stop a schemer from Nebraska from hopping the border… other than the low personal benefit and high personal risk of committing voter fraud. A Nebraskan with no South Dakota connection and no intent to form one would have to make up an address for the voter registration form, then when voting either present an ID (which would set attentive poll workers’ alarms off with its Nebraska info) or write that bogus address on the legal affidavit.