More election info might become public record
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — Cast vote records and ballot images captured by automated tabulating machines in future South Dakota elections would become public records under a proposal moving forward in the South Dakota Legislature.
The Senate Local Government Committee on Wednesday endorsed an amended version of Senate Bill 104.
The panel's 6-0 vote moves SB 104 to the Legislature's Joint Committee on Appropriations. That is because it requests $516,000 from state government's general fund for grants to be made available through the South Dakota Secretary of State office to county auditors to assist with the costs. The 18 Senate and House appropriators assemble and oversee state government's annual budget.
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Republican Sen. Tom Pischke is SB 104's prime sponsor. It is supported by South Dakota Canvassing Group, which focuses on election integrity. The group's leader, president Jessica Pollema of Sioux Falls, and election technology specialist Rick Weible of Elkton testified as supporters Wednesday.
The legislation defines a ballot image as 'a digital rendering or facsimile of a paper ballot tabulated in the election' and defines a cast vote record as 'an electronic record of how the marks on a ballot are tabulated as a vote for a candidate or other ballot question.'
Weible said that the availability of ballot images and cast vote records would enable county auditors to better identify whether election fraud had occurred. He said counties would need special laptops and special software.
Currently four South Dakota counties have that equipment. The grants would cover 60 other counties that don't, including those handling elections for Todd and Oglala Lakota counties.
Minnehaha County has the laptop and software and experimented during the 2024 primary election, according to Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson. Testifying as a supporter, Anderson told the senators that her office also used the equipment last year for post-election audits. 'It was very useful and a great learning experience,' she said.
Counties would be responsible in future years for annual licensing fees, however. McPherson County Auditor Lindley Howard said the $5,600 annual cost for the fee was 'a real sticking point' in her county, which had a population of 2,411 in the 2020 census.
Howard is a member of the state Elections Board that sets rules and awards grants. She spoke as an opponent to SB 104. The cast vote records and ballot images would make post-election audits unnecessary, according to Howard. The Legislature passed a 2023 law requiring post-election audits, a step Howard supported. 'I think we need to do one or the other. Both is not feasible,' she said on Wednesday.
Another opponent was Rachel Soulek, director for the state Division of Elections within the Secretary of State office. Soulek said the legislation that Secretary of State Monae Johnson brought last year would have designated cast vote records and ballot images as public records if a county had the equipment to make them available.
The 2024 bill contained no funding. Soulek argued Wednesday that the $516,000 now being requested in Pischke's bill wasn't 'a prudent use' of public funds.
Soulek also warned that the federal Help America Vote Act funding which South Dakota receives would be strained. She distributed a handout. 'As you can see, the HAVA dollars would quickly go away if this was passed,' she told the senators.
Pischke in rebuttal said the Legislature controls the purse strings and can make the county grants a priority. Regarding designating the information as public records, he added, 'Other states already do this.'
Weible answered a series of questions from Republican Sen. David Wheeler about funding. Weible said South Dakota hadn't applied for some of the available federal election funding in the past. Weible said he's been in contact with some members of Congress to see whether states could be allowed to apply in the future for money that was previously available.
Regarding timing, Weible said he sees the legislation as 'a go-forward type' of bill. 'The vision-cast should be for the 2026 primary election,' he said.
Wheeler voted to send SB 104 forward to the appropriations panel. He said a small group of people wants access to the information and he doesn't want counties to be without money to fulfill public record requests for it.
'That's my ultimate fear of what's going to happen,' Wheeler said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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