On Friday, Attorney General Marty Jackley announced that the Division of Criminal Investigation had investigated Edmunds County Commissioner-elect Julie Burgod for petition fraud. Burgod won the June primary against incumbent commissioner Dean Mehlhaff and faces no challenger on the November ballot. The Attorney General’s press release indicates that DCI found nothing wrong with the petition itself but suggests the commissioner-elect may be in tax trouble:
South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley announces that the Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) conducted a review into discrepancies involving Juliane Burgod’s nominating petition for county commission in Edmunds County and her owner-occupied tax status. DCI’s role was to determine whether a false or forged document may have been filed in connection with an election. The findings from that review have been forwarded to the South Dakota Department of Revenue for its consideration regarding the owner‑occupied status of one of the listed addresses.
The matter was referred to the Attorney General’s Office by Edmunds County State’s Attorney Vaughn Beck, who reported that the candidate’s petition address appeared to conflict with the address listed for her owner‑occupied tax status.
South Dakota Codified Law 7-8-2 requires that county commissioners be registered to vote within the district in which they are nominated.
Beck requested DCI’s involvement because of a conflict of interest related to Burgod’s potential position as a county commissioner.
…Neither the Attorney General’s Office nor DCI has any pending action involving Ms. Burgod. Because the issue appears to be one of owner-occupied tax status rather than election fraud it has been referred to the Department of Revenue that maintains that jurisdiction [Office of the Attorney General, press release, 2026.09.11].
There’s no foul on qualification for county commission: the address Burgod gave on her petition is the same address at which she is registered to vote. But Burgod says DCI dug deeper into her petition:
Four months prior, on March 30, Burgod had filed a petition to run for county commissioner. She only needed three signatures from local citizenry to file the paperwork, but in just-in-case mode, Burgod obtained nine signatures.
On August 6, one week after visiting Burgod, DCI located her nine signatories and questioned them all. “That’s right,” she emphasizes. “DCI went and found all the people that signed for me to check them out, or check me out.”
Intimidation? Verification? “All I can do is speculate, but I suspect they’re trying to have me removed as commissioner,” she says, “and they targeted my petition and voter registration” [Chris Bennett, “Targeted? South Dakota Farmer Criminally Investigated After Questioning Mega-Dairy Construction,” AgWeb, 2026.09.01.
DCI evidently didn’t find any signature monkeyshines, either. Jackley’s press release is thus doubly curious: his people didn’t find anything wrong, indicating there’s no need for a public announcement, yet says the Department of Revenue is looking into the tax question, an unusual comment from law enforcement on an ongoing investigation.
The immediate purpose of Jackley’s press release appears to be beating back the notion that the investigation was politically motivated:
Attorney General Jackleg emphasized that DCI’s review was limited solely to the potential filing of a false or forged document as it pertained to an election and was unrelated to any agricultural project or policy issue. After completing its review, DCI transferred the materials to the Department of Revenue for further examination under South Dakota’s Owner-Occupied tax classification laws.
“As Attorney General, I remain committed to ensuring the integrity of our elections,” said Attorney General Jackley. “To categorize DCI’s involvement in this matter as anything other than preserving the legitimacy of our elections is simply untrue” [Office of the Attorney General, 2026.09.11].
Jackley doesn’t specify the categorization to which he’s responding, but it’s clear the A.G. is jumping at the September 1 AgWeb article in which Burgod says DCI came to question her the day after she spoke against an incoming Riverview mega-dairy at the July 29 Edmunds County Commission meeting:
In August 2025, based on a conditional-use-permit application, Burgod caught wind of an incoming dairy to Edmunds County owned by Minnesota-based Riverview LLP. Edmunds County has dairies, but nothing to compare with the inbound proposal: Belle Dairy, a 25,000-head operation spanning 640 acres.
The Edmunds County zoning board approved Belle Dairy despite area opposition: Local citizens submitted hundreds of comments, a binder containing detailed concerns, a 346-signature petition requesting permit denial, and 61,000 acres in designated denial of manure agreements.
“I believe the approval has a lot to do with GOED (Governor’s Office of Economic Development) money,” Burgod says. “It was stated that the county expects to receive $4.3 million.”
Once over the county zoning hurdle, the project moved to state approval via South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR). However, Burgod refused to spit the bit: She stuck her neck out and began asking questions.
…Burgod dove into the paperwork, including Belle Dairy’s 200-plus page county application and its DANR application—an almost 1,300-page tome supplemented by almost 200 more pages of additions.
What did she find? The math, she says, wasn’t mathing.
From acres to cow weight to manure output, Belle Dairy’s proposed numbers are highly suspect, Burgod contends.
“They list 25,000 cows at 1,000 lb. for 365 days. The 1,000 lb. weight seemed unreasonable and it challenged me to do more research. Reality is 900 lb. on a Jersey to 1,700 on a Holstein. The nutrient management plan tied to the available acres for manure application compared to lagoon size were showing a major discrepancy. I made a chart to show a comparison of the numbers.
“The manure volume tied to the available acres was significantly lower than the manure volume calculated for the lagoon sizing,” she continues. “They claim each cow will produce 80 lb. of manure a day, when it’ll likely be 120-150 lb. That means their total of 2 million lb. of manure a day may very possibly be over 3.3 million lb. So, from storage to phosphorus to any other aspect of production and management, I have presented questions about the findings. I’m pointing out the obvious.”
At a minimum, Burgod projects, Belle Dairy may need up to 25,000 acres annually to operate.
“The rock I’ll stand on is acreage,” Burgod explains. “The county ordinance requires that they have sufficient land to have their permit. Sure, 16,571 acres is adequate for 2 million lb. of manure a day, but it’s wildly low for 3.3 million lb. of manure a day. Sorry, but numbers don’t lie.”
On July 14, Burgod reported potential ordinance violations to Edmunds County officials. Following up, she documented her position in writing and delivered a formal complaint to the Zoning Board on July 20. Next, at a July 29 County Commissioner meeting, she outlined her concerns.
Twenty-four hours later, on July 30, the South Dakota Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI) came calling [Bennett, 2026.09.11].
The Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources approved Riverview’s feedlot permit for the Belle Dairy last month. The Edmunds County feedlot would be the Minnesota company’s sixth mega-dairy in South Dakota.
Burgod may be in tax trouble (like Senator Tamara Grove, as we discovered last June), but such a finding from the Department of Revenue won’t change her legal eligibility to take her seat on the Edmunds County Commission in 2027. Nor does Burgod’s tax status change the validity of the concerns she has raised about Riverview’s compliance with its conditional use permit. Riverview’s ability to handle all the manure its 25,000 cows will make is of keen importance to everyone in the Edmunds County watershed… as is the question of whether Burgod’s public questioning of Riverview’s poop calculations prompted the investigation of her petition and property tax status.