Trend – The Big Lie

Voters line up to cast early ballots on Nov. 4, 2022, at the Minnehaha County Courthouse in Sioux Falls. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

Competing Republican views about ‘election integrity’ yield dozens of bills

BY: - February 12, 2023

Political rhetoric about election integrity has translated into a cascade of election-related bills from feuding factions of South Dakota’s Republican Party. Republican legislative leaders announced a package of election-related bills they want to adopt during this year’s 38-day legislative session in Pierre, which began last month and continues until March. Meanwhile, a subset of Republican […]

COMMENTARY
State Rep. Phil Jensen, R-Rapid City, on the House floor during the 2023 legislative session. (Joshua Haiar/SD Searchlight)

Judging by some bills, South Dakota must have no real problems left to solve

BY: - February 2, 2023

Everything is OK in South Dakota. We’ve taken care of all our problems, big and small. We’re on the right track and no one can stop us now. Cynics who read the above paragraph and don’t believe it should direct their attention to the Jan. 25 meeting of the House State Affairs Committee. During that […]

Barb Desersa, Auditor for Tripp and Todd counties in south-central South Dakota, will hand count an estimated 1,050 ballots from Tripp County in the 2022 election.

Tripp County first SD county in two decades to hand count election ballots

BY: - November 3, 2022

An election law on the books since 1994 allows county commissions to overrule the county auditor by “experimenting with” a combined hand-counting and tabulated ballot counting system. That statute allowed the Tripp County Commission in south-central South Dakota to order a hand count for Tuesday’s general election. It also allows the Fall River County Commission […]

COMMENTARY
Monae Johnson waits to welcome potential voters at an October 2022 meet-and-great in a Rapid City coffee shop, during her campaign to become South Dakota's secretary of state. (Seth Tupper/SD Searchlight)

The trouble with Monae Johnson and Jell-O

BY: - October 28, 2022

I was interviewing U.S. Sen. John Thune several years ago when he used a phrase I’d never heard in a political context. He said rounding up votes in the Senate was like “nailing Jell-O to a tree.” Lately, I’ve been thinking the same description applies to something else: interviewing Monae Johnson about the 2020 presidential […]

(SDI Productions/Getty Images)

Prolonged challenges by losing candidates could overshadow November election results

BY: - October 25, 2022

Joey Gilbert, a Reno-based attorney, lost the GOP primary for Nevada governor by roughly 26,000 votes in June, a margin of around 11 points. But he wasn’t ready to admit defeat.  Empowered by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election, Gilbert refused to concede. He offered a $25,000 reward […]