Bob Mercer reports that the Secretary of State’s office has moved down from the second floor of the State Capitol to the first. The move comes as outgoing Secretary Monae Johnson brings the Business Services division back under the dome alongside Elections and General Services.
Along with this physical move, the Secretary of State’s office also appears to be revamping its website. The redesigned webpages, largely an exercise in moving from line links to blocks, haven’t yet replaced the old layout; both versions of the SOS website are available:
The redesign of the ballot question page is a mess. The old ballot question page shows the 2026 Ballot Question Pro-Con Pamphlet right at the top, along with the mellow audio version; whoever redesigned the ballot question page forgot to include that vital voter guidance. The redesign puts the now mostly irrelevant “2026 Cycle Basics” about the petition-circulation window for initiatives for this cycle at the top (while failing to mention the referendum process); one has to scroll down to see the measures the Legislature put on the ballot and the citizen measures that failed to qualify. The blocks assigned to each ballot measure include the Attorney General’s explanations—both draft and final—and the petitions for citizen initiatives and referenda. The other vital documents for citizen measures—Legislative Research Council comments, fiscal notes, single-subject certificates, approved circulator forms—are all jumbled together in a pile at the bottom of the page, with titles pulled directly from URLs that often don’t indicate which measures they are associated with:
Neither this sloppy redesign of the ballot question page nor the original version make any mention of the 2028 ballot question cycle, which began in May. Secretary Johnson continues to ignore the pending raw-milk initiative that has gone through both LRC and AG review. The only state resource offering voters information about the pending initiative appears to be the Attorney General’s August 10 press release on his final text explaining the measure. Neither version of the SOS offers citizens clear information on how to circulate ballot question petitions for the 2028 election, a complicated process that serious activists will want to be working on right now.
Secretary Johnson, I know you’re busy unpacking in the new downstairs office and planning your transition back to private life (not to mention planning your appearances at campaign events for the man you hope will replace you, Terrence Davis), so if you need some help fixing the ballot question page, let me know. I’ll be happy to explain to your web gurus how ballot question information should be organized and prioritized to best serve the people of South Dakota.
Retiring the old design from The Gant is past due. Good on Ms. Monae for not just coasting to the out door next to her freshly painted new office.