South Dakota now excludes 5,735 registered voters from participating in the selection of governor, legislators, judges, county commissioners, and other state and local officials and ballot questions, just because they don’t have their proof of citizenship handy. South Dakota Searchlight has found mistakes on the federal-only voter list:
South Dakota Searchlight purchased a list of the state’s federal-only voters from the Secretary of State’s Office as of Oct. 6 and emailed county auditors about voters whose registration information — including their original registration date or mailing address — raised questions about whether they belonged on the list. In three instances, auditors said the voters had been mistakenly designated as federal-only and corrected their status [Makenzie Huber, “South Dakota’s Federal-Only Voter List Grows to Nearly 6,000, Surprising Some Who Are on It,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2026.10.13].
And as one might have expected from policy driven by Trumpublican election paranoia, the “federal-only” restriction of voter rights is disproportionately suppressing non-Republican voters:
About 40% of federal-only voters are either independent or non-politically affiliated (meaning they left the affiliation portion of the form blank), 38% are Republicans, and 21% are Democrats. Libertarian and “other” registered voters make up 1% of federal-only voters [Huber, 2026.10.13].
The percentage of Democrats on the non-federal list matches their 21.5% share of South Dakota’s general electorate. But indy/NPA voters make up only 25% of South Dakota’s voters, while Republicans make up 52.8%.
The deadline for registering to vote in the November 3 election is this coming Monday, October 19. Huber reports that the Secretary of State’s online Voter Information Portal doesn’t say up front whether you’ve been moved to federal-only status; you have to click on your sample ballot to see if it includes Rhoden/Ahlers and Amendments I–L or, better yet, just call your county auditor, who probably has her poop in a far better group than your lame-duck Secretary of State.
Republicans cheating! Who knew?
Excluditarians!
They imagine 1000s of illegals voting everywhere.
Let’s elect a Democrat to Secretary of State!
grudznick thinks it is probably because, in general, the Republicans have their indiviual groups of poop in a better arrangement. Thus, it is exactly proportional. Ms. Monae is doing the best she can and doesn’t need more pilings on.
A political party having a poop and putting it in a group is not proof of anything. I have no words awful enough to express my disgust with this. I’ve voted in every election since people 18 and over were allowed to vote. I have never missed one, whether it was a spring election, a fall election or a special election. Just try to pull that sh^t on me, and you’ll be looking down the barrel of a gun. I think these people should be hung from the nearest tree.
I only wish Republicans would give voting rights the intense defense they give gun ownership rights. The “P” stands for “pick-and-choose what Constitutional rights are real and which are just suggestions.”
O is correct. But I’m through wishing. Liz’s father was prevented from registering to vote because he was Lakota!!! Granted this was a long time ago, but now we have gone back to the era of finding stupid excuses to disqualify people from voting. I don’t have a gun, and my hyperbole above is not meant literally, but this sh*t
has got to stop.
Mr. Pay, I am sure all know you were just ranting hyperbolic, and understands your frustrations and knows you weren’t threatening grudznick or anybody else.
grudznick is also sure you have not sent anything to Ms. Monae’s office, but apparently somebody did. It could have had a postmark from somewhere outside of South Dakota.
A cynical observer might suspect Pierre would be better after the Yellowstone supervolcano buries it under ten feet of ash.
grudznick understands the bitter scorn of his close personal friend Lar, who is red-assed about the local indigenous blocking his driveway, thus forcing him to drive a route as challenging as one buried under ten feet of ash.
Rewild the Southwest!
Well Ain’t that a quarter pound grudzberger?
what do you mean, they can’t prove their citizenship????
Take out your driver’s license (or your non-drivers ID card)
look at the front of it
is there a star in the upper right corner? If there is, turn it over. Small print, bottom left side: US citizen Y or N.
If you don’t have such an ID card, how do you work? How fo you get a job, or government benefits? Access medical care?
Tribal identification cards issued by federally recognized tribes are official forms of government identification, but they are not universally or consistently accepted by federal law enforcement as standalone proof of U.S. citizenship.
All registered natives here have federal tribal IDs, and they should be used anywhere. Good point Larry.
My mother had to prove her name change from 2 marriages and back to her maiden name to get a S.D. driver’s license. Do you know what a fricking hassle that was? Especially when she married in the 40s and on army bases in different parts of the country. You can’t get copies of early documents online and in most cases have to be present to get a copy. She drove 2 years with an outdated license but used her passport for all her identification. And as long as you renew early, you don’t have to have 10 documents to prove who you are.
Females out there, if you change your name, get documents immediately and put them in a strong box in the bank.
A lot of poor people don’t have driver licenses, and that is not one of the documents accepted if it is issued before 2025. You think a lot of poor folks are flying to France? Why would they have a passport? Glad to see they accept tribal IDs. It cost me money to get a copy of my birth certificate. If the only reason I’m getting one is to prove citizenship for voting why shouldn’t the state pay for it? Some clucks think we don’t or shouldn’t have birthright citizenship. So, if they believe that and try to enforce it, a birth certificate is worth about the same a toilet paper in proving citizenship. So, how would anyone who did not have naturalization papers prove citizenship? Some government office already has all this birth certificate information on file, so why can’t the state just handle all this by themselves? One of the reasons the USA exists is because the citizens could not vote for their representatives even though those folks in Great Britain were taxing them. If I pay any tax, why shouldn’t I be able to vote, no questions asked>
Just asking.
A lot of poor people don’t have driver licenses, and that is not one of the documents accepted if it is issued before 2025. You think a lot of poor folks are flying to France? Why would they have a passport? Glad to see they accept tribal IDs. It cost me money to get a copy of my birth certificate. If the only reason I’m getting one is to prove citizenship for voting why shouldn’t the state pay for it? Some clucks think we don’t or shouldn’t have birthright citizenship. So, if they believe that and try to enforce it, a birth certificate is worth about the same a toilet paper in proving citizenship. So, how would anyone who did not have naturalization papers prove citizenship? Some government office already has all this birth certificate information on file, so why can’t the state just handle all this by themselves? One of the reasons the USA exists is because the citizens could not vote for their representatives even though those folks in Great Britain were taxing them. If I pay any tax, why shouldn’t I be able to vote, no questions asked>
Just asking.
Yeah the right wingers want to hassle half the citizens with poll tax requests for tons of documents! Get a life, grow a spine and a heart! Your white Christian nationalist racist empire is ending! Supreme Court ruled against you guys and bots in the 60s! Poll tax is illegal and unconstitutional! Get facts and knowledge before you open your mouth! Every citizen has the right to vote and no paper work burden. We have rights and you try to get wrongs passed in Sodak lag
-islature!
Mr. Pay, grudznick is surprised you are OK with people who don’t pay taxes not being able to vote.
Grudz, anyone who pays a sales tax, a gas tax, a liquor tax is a taxpayer. Essentially everyone is a taxpayer. Kids who buy candy with their allowances are taxpayers, but I wouldn’t necessarily think they should be voting.
I voted early today and even though I belong to no party, I voted straight Democrat. Get those loser Republicans out of Pierre and elect people with ideas on how to grow South Dakota and make us all proud again. Everyone who is 18 and over needs to vote. Do it now and get it over with. It’s easy and painless.