Bob Mercer: House Bill 1011 – The Purge voters faster act, passed in 2018 Legislature

This post written and prepared by Bruce Danielson

The incompetence of South Dakota Democratic Party always amazes.

Bob Mercer keeps an eye on South Dakota political dynamics like no one else from his perch in Pierre. He once again let all know the latest SD Secretary of State TotalVote party affiliation counts. These show the continuing demise of the Democratic Party.

With 2018 passage of and soon to be law, our esteemed legislators (including every Dem) gave permission with HB 1011 for Shantel Krebs to purge thousands of voters. Under the ”leadership” of Anne Tornberg, the Democratic Party has accepted its future of decline.

Instead of finding a way to get more people to vote, the “leadership” has decided it is better to allow fewer voters? Tornberg has never fought for the average voter to be involved and this is just another example.

Look at the list of counties Mercer highlighted: Lawrence, Brookings, Lincoln, Pennington and Union counties. All of them, once upon a time consistently purple or blue counties. Under the Democrats current failed “leadership”, the party has become the GOP-lite party of stale ideas of me-tooism. The situation is so bad, the few Democrats in the Legislature voted with the GOP to allow a questionably ethical SOS to purge even more voters from the rolls when they accepted HP 1011.

Look at another questionable decision by the head of the state Democratic Party, the interference in the 2018 Sioux Falls city election. It added to the problems the losing candidate already had to overcome.

Leadership is not just running an organization making decisions based on your own limited experiences. Just showing up does not make you a leader. How did the current management of the party get their jobs anyway?

The current “leadership” of the Democratic Party has decided it is better to fail under their control, than to work with others to build a party where more have a voice. The party of inclusiveness has in South Dakota now become the party of bankrupt ideas. Then again, are there any ideas? What’s the use of trying to have a multi-party state when “leadership” incompetence prevails. Rudderless ships don’t go very far before they sink.

Voter registration trend continues

May 23, 2018 by Bob Mercer.

Call them the “third column.” Heading into the June 5 statewide election, independent and no-party voters now rank second in 11 counties.

There are more “third-column” voters registered than Democrats in Butte, Lawrence, Pennington, Meade, Custer, Fall River, Brookings, Lincoln and Union counties.

There are more third-column than Republicans in heavily Democratic counties of Oglala Lakota and Todd.

Together they’re one-sixth of South Dakota’s 66 counties.

Statewide, registrations as of Wednesday were 156,405 Democrats; 249,932 Republicans; 121,478 independents and NPAs; 471 Constitutionalists; 1,722 Libertarians; and 791 others.

The spread 10 years ago for the November general election? 204,413 Democrats; 241,528 Republicans; and 83,147 independents and others.

As if we didn’t have enough things to follow in this past legislature, we have this act requiring the SOS Office to purge more voters from the rolls in a shorter time period? The interesting part of this, no one from either party thought it was a bad idea? Have any of you seen the ridiculous card the auditors send out? The previous requirement was eight years.

Lawmakers approve changes untouched for counties on voter confirmation process

BOB MERCER Journal correspondent – Jan 25, 2018

PIERRE | The state Senate gave final legislative approval Thursday to changes Secretary of State Shantel Krebs seeks for South Dakota’s voter-confirmation process.

The 32-0 vote sends HB 1011 to the governor’s desk for Dennis Daugaard’s decision whether it becomes law.

The proposal didn’t attract a nay its entire way through the legislative process, via two committees, the House and the Senate, where it passed on the consent calendar.

There weren’t any amendments either.

The process currently calls for county auditors to check every odd-numbered year for registered voters who haven’t been active in the previous four years. The auditors take a series of steps for those voters between Jan. 1 and Nov. 15.

That part of the process doesn’t change. HB 1011 formally establishes two requirements.

What they are

First, a county auditor would send a national change of address notice to each voter in the active file who has failed to vote in the previous four years.

This section covers voters who haven’t updated registration information, haven’t replied to a confirmation mailing at least once in the previous four years and haven’t had a change of address with the U.S. Post Office.

The second section covers what are known as confirmation mailing notices. The legislation says the notice is a double postcard explaining the voter’s registration may be canceled if the card isn’t signed and returned.

There will be other information on the postcard about changing the address and re-registering if the voter moved to another county or state.

Kea Warne, the deputy secretary of state for elections, presented the bill Wednesday to the Senate Local Government Committee.

The panel voted 6-0 to recommend passage on a motion made by Sen. Ryan Maher, R-Isabel, and seconded by Sen. Kevin Killer, D-Pine Ridge.

Here are PDF Docs of the bills; HB1011ENR, HB1011P

Editor’s note; What I have never understood is why purge voters at all? Or why even have people register to vote when they turn 18? I have often said that when someone turns 18, send a card to them that says they are registered to vote as NPA (No party affiliation) and if you want to change your party affiliation you can come down to the auditor’s office and change it, otherwise you would be automatically registered. You of course would be responsible for address changes, etc. But you would never be NON-registered and never taken from the voter list.