In South Dakota, if you fail to timely file your campaign finance forms, you face a $50 daily fine. In Utah, you get kicked off the ballot:
The office of Utah Lt. Gov. Greg Bell says Brent L. Andrews of Sunset — a Democratic candidate for State Senate District 20 — failed to file a campaign financial disclosure form before the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline, so he will be disqualified from the election as required by law.
...Mark Thomas, state elections director for Bell, said his office was on the phone with Andrews shortly before the deadline urging him to file quickly. "He argued with us that the deadline wasn't until next week and hung up," Thomas said. "So we're going to pull the trigger" on removing him from the ballot [Lee Davidson, "Utah Democrat Kicked off the Ballot," Salt Lake Tribune, October 30, 2012].
I haven't reviewed all of the South Dakota campaign finance filings, but I see one glaring blank: there is still no pre-general filing from the Roy J. Lindsay for House campaign. I spoke with the District 8 candidate's treasurer, and he didn't hang up: he says he filed the report by last Friday's deadline and is puzzled as to why Secretary of State Jason Gant hasn't posted it yet. I have found the U.S. Postal Service more reliable than Secretary Gant, so I wouldn't pull the trigger just yet on telling Roy to start cutting fifty-dollar checks.
Bob Mercer agrees: the Secretary of State's office does such sloppy web work that we can't tell just days before the election if we should be holding candidates accountable for errors or if we should be roasting Jason Gant for further incompetence.
Even though I strongly believe in limited government I do have to say I like this and wish South Dakota would do something like this and tighten up the rest of the campaign laws in this state and get rid of Gant and the rest of the staff in the SOS office.
See, Dan? There are some things we outsiders can work together on.
A letter-writing campaign to the US Department of Justice might precipitate investigations of corrupt South Dakota politics: only the Feds can save the state from the Sanfords and the Schoenbecks.