Pennington County Sends Extra-Legal Absentee Voter Instructions

Last updated on 2012.10.30

My wife and I just filled out our absentee ballots at the dining room table. We shared hot Lakota popcorn, reviewed the exact language of the amendments (why don't we get that on the ballot instead of the AG's interpretations?), and closely followed the exact language of the absentee voter instructions sent to us by the Lake County auditor.

Those instructions looked exactly like the instructions sent out by the Minnehaha County auditor pictured below. The only difference was that taped to the Lake County sheet was a skinny green pencil (thanks, Bobbi!).

South Dakota Administrative Rule 05:02:10:04 says "All ballots mailed or delivered to absentee voters shall include instructions that read as follows...." The language subsequently spelled out by SDAR 05:02:10:04 matches exactly the full text that appears on the Lake and Minnehaha County absentee voter instructions.

Not conforming to SDAR 05:02:10:04 are the absentee voter instructions sent out by Pennington County (as sent to me by an attentive reader):

Pennington County includes almost all of the language SDAR 05:02:10:04 requires, but intersperses it with a bunch of other text, including...

including...

1. an admonition to use only a BLUE PEN;
2. admonitions not to mark outside the ovals, erase, rip, make holes, or write in names on the ballot;
3. advice to call the auditor's office in case of making a mistake or over-voting;
4. an explanation of how to witness a ballot for a voter unable to write;
5. a note that voters may drop off absentee ballots in the box outside the front door of the courthouse;
6. a warning that "Anyone who makes a false statement when they vote, tries to vote knowing they are not a qualified voter, or tries to vote more than once has committed an election crime";
7. a statement that voters who feel their rights have been violated may call the county auditor, the Sec. of State, or the state's attorney.

Some of Pennington County's additional advice seems helpful, like directing me to the ballot dropbox at the front door of the courthouse and pointing me toward the elected officials I can call if I feel my voting rights are being violated. Some smells like the not-so-subtle intimidation language that Republicans like Secretary of State Jason Gant like to use to deter voters who don't think and look like them from voting.

And some of the advice, like the blue-ink warning, seems just wrong. My Lake County ballot says we can fill in the bubbles with pen or pencil, no color specified. The Pennington County ballot says "use only a pen" but doesn't specify a color. SDAR 05:02:06:01.02 says that language may vary depending on the type of scanning system used... but I will yield the floor to any of my expert readers who can tell my why Pennington County would invest in ballot scanners that can only read one color of ink while other counties have found technology that doesn't disenfranchise folks based on the writing utensil they had handy.

But all of that extra advice is extra-legal. State regulations make clear how absentee voter instructions should read. Pennington County's absentee voter instructions read differently.

Secretary Gant, who's been running our state election system by the seat of his crony-stitched britches from day one, probably won't have anything to say about this discrepancy between rule and practice. But I will. This is an election, the highest ceremony of democracy. We do everything by the book, even little things like the absentee instructions that, as of this writing, have been sent out to nearly 70,000 South Dakota voters. Pennington County, if you can explain how your absentee voter instructions do not cross election rules, I welcome you to do so.