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SD Canvassing Member Tells Board of Elections to Get Rid of Technology, Like Banks Have

By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2023-07-03

Members of the South Dakota Canvassing Group packed state Board of Elections meeting last Wednesday to shoot their mouths off about their election-denial-inspired foolishness, almost none of which pertained to the actual rules on the Board’s agenda. One of those cranks, Mike Assman, a big supporter of election-denying Secretary of State Monae Johnson, offered this Luddite rant:

During the public comment period after the hearing, one of those who came in with the South Dakota Canvassing Group, Mike Assman from Mission, spoke up. He and his wife, Darla, donated $8,000 last year to Johnson’s campaign. They were one of her largest contributors.

“All of this technology brings chaos,” Assman, a former county commissioner, said. He compared voting to putting money in a bank, then being told you can’t know how much you really have. “Now how long would you be at that bank?” he asked.

“It’s not headed anywhere good, guys. It could be good,” he said about how South Dakota relies on technology for election administration. “It’s a joke. It will never be right. We will never trust it. We will never trust it” [Bob Mercer, “SD Canvassing Group Goes to State Election Rules Hearing,” KELO-TV, 2023.06.28].

I wonder if Assman has noticed how much technology his bank uses. When he goes in to make a deposit, I’m sure his teller, like mine and yours, turns immediately to her computer. When Assman asks for his balance, his teller doesn’t go to the vault and count Assman’s gold bars; his teller punches a few buttons to make the computer count electrons.

Assman evidently wasn’t paying attention last November when his neighbors in Tripp County, who counted ballots by hand to placate the cries of the SD Canvassing moonbats, added to the overwhelming empirical evidence that machines count ballots more accurately than humans.

But we know empirical evidence won’t shake Assman’s and Secretary Johnson’s commitment to undermining election integrity with their election denialism.

Published in South Dakota

5 Comments

  1. sx123 2023-07-03 07:07

    Quite the last name…
    Assman can go back to using an abacus while the rest of the world moves forward.

  2. P. Aitch 2023-07-03 07:58

    Let it be known that the denialists may spin their webs, complicating the intricate dance of democracy, but the story of progress, of hope, and resilience, will forever bear the indelible marks of the Black and Latino voter majority who elected President Biden —a mark that will stand the test of time and illuminate the path towards a more inclusive and just future.

  3. DaveFN 2023-07-03 10:46

    sx123

    fyi The Assman families descend from immigrant Nicklaus Charles Ahsman born ~1856 in Aßmannshausen, Hessen, Germany who arrived in the US in 1881.

  4. buckobear 2023-07-03 15:42

    As I’ve said before: firmly planted in the twentieth century and fondly looking backwards.

Comments are closed.