Scott Ehrisman casts doubt on Mayor Paul TenHaken’s claim that Sioux Falls added about 7,000 residents last year. If we look at voter registration data, we may find that TenHaken may actually be lowballing his population guesstimate.
On January 3, 2022, the Secretary of State’s office reported 125,607 voters registered in Minnehaha County and 41,801 registered in Lincoln County. Sioux Falls sprawls across those two counties, with a majority of its population in Minnehaha. In 2021, Sioux Falls constituted 73.45% of the two counties’ total population.
On December 1, 2022 (I’d look at updated voter data for January, but, well, you know…), the Secretary of State’s office reported 131,540 voters registered in Minnehaha and 44,565 registered in Lincoln. That’s 8,697 more voters at the end of 2022 in the two counties than at the beginning of the year.
If we assume that Sioux Fallsians register to vote at the same rate as all county residents, we can estimate that 6,388 of those new voters are Sioux Falls residents. And further, if we figure that registered voters constitute about 62% of the population, 6,388 new voters would correspond to over 10,000 new residents in Sioux Falls.
How many of these are “motor voters”, residing elsewhere? Maybe Tenhaken is correct.
Jezz, when I lived in Sioux Falls it was smaller than Sioux City, a mere 65,000 people. Over 200,000 now, its time to push the diversity button on the old home town. Liberalism over Libertarians, even though both groups smoke dope.