Absentee voting is available on the third floor of the Minnehaha County building in downtown Sioux Falls, South Dakota, ahead of the city and school board election on April 9, 2024. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – Election officials in South Dakota are worried about a possible delayed start for early and absentee voting as they rush to prepare ballots for the June 2 primary, and they’re also navigating changes to registration requirements signed into law by Gov. Larry Rhoden last month.
Lincoln County Auditor Sheri Lund said South Dakota voters should check their registration status and party affiliation as soon as possible. New voters should register soon as well, in case there are processing delays because of missing documentation required by a new law.
The new law, which went into effect on March 26, requires new voters to provide documentation of their U.S. citizenship with a driver’s license or identification card issued after July 1, 2025, a tribal ID, or a legible photocopy of a birth certificate, U.S. passport, consular report of birth abroad from the U.S. Department of State, or certificate of naturalization.
“If you’re a first-time registering voter in South Dakota, do not procrastinate,” Lund said. “Do it now, and make sure it goes through the right way.”
Kayla Delfs, election coordinator with the Lincoln County Auditor’s Office, said the office had received 10 voter registration applications as of March 7 that were missing the necessary documentation to prove U.S. citizenship as required by the new law.
One person emailed proof of citizenship, but Delfs said she has not received documentation yet from the others after mailing notification of the problem to them. Those voters will be registered as federal only voters until they provide proper documentation — a new voter status signed into law in 2025. Federal only voters can vote in presidential and congressional races, not state and local races.
Pennington County Auditor Sabrina Green expects problems with missing U.S. citizenship documentation to dwindle over the next several years, as South Dakota driver’s licenses and identification cards expire and get renewed. Last July, the state began requiring newly issued cards to display the licensee’s citizenship status.
As county auditors and their staffs work to inform new voters of the changes, they’re also grappling with a quickly approaching start to early and absentee voting.
Prospective candidates from political parties had to file nominating petitions by the last Tuesday in March to make the ballot for the June 2 primary. Through a quirk of the calendar, that fell on March 31 this year, which shortened the time between the filing of those petitions and the printing of ballots for early and absentee voting.
Lawmakers this year reacted to complaints about that by changing the nominating petition deadline to the third Tuesday in March. But they were concerned about changing the deadline for a petition process that was already underway, so they made the change effective for future elections, not the current one.
Early and absentee voting for the primary election begins on April 17. On Tuesday, the Secretary of State’s Office drew the order in which candidates will appear on ballots, giving county auditors eight business days to prepare, proofread and order ballots.
Green said her office will alert county residents if early voting is delayed, adding that she is “nervous” about the approaching deadline.
“I would rather our ballots are done correctly, proofed and without errors instead of rushing to meet the deadline,” Green said.
Early and absentee voting is required by state statute to begin “no later” than 46 days before the election, and ballots must be printed 48 days before. Auditors considered allowing voters to use sample ballots, like they’re allowed to on Election Day if a polling place runs out of ballots, but auditors decided against it, Delfs said.
“We’ve got our hands tied,” Delfs said. “What law do we break here?”
Lund said it’ll be a “hard push” to ensure early voting starts on time, but she is hopeful it will. The Secretary of State’s Office is allowing auditors to order early and absentee ballots separately from their Election Day ballots, which will speed up the process because there will be fewer ballots to print and ship so soon.
“I have my fingers crossed,” Lund said.
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