The Senate State Affairs Committee is considering several election-related bills proposed by the secretary of state.
Senate Bill 17 impacts full-time travelers who are registered to vote in South Dakota. The bill clarifies the residency requirement needed to become a registered voter.
Another bill allows the secretary of state to share information from state-wide voter registration files.
Tom Deadrick is the deputy secretary of state. He said Senate Bill 18 would allow for a smoother process when it comes to canceling your voting registration.
“Voters don’t always fill out the cancelation section very well” Deadrick said. “And sometimes they don’t even remember where they were last registered to vote. This becomes especially apparent when we are looking at petitions and they don’t remember which county they even live in. This would allow us to share the voter registration file information with other states. The purpose would be to help clean up the voter rolls.”
Both bills will appear before the Senate State Affairs Committee Wednesday.
Last week, the committee passed two similar bills aiming to relax the rules of compiling voter registration data.
Sen. David Wheeler supported both bills.
“This is simply a ministerial function” he said. “We are not removing any oversite responsibility from the Board of Elections. This does not affect election integrity or the laws regarding how elections are operated or how people are registered. This statute is simply how numbers are published on a website. And I don’t think we need rules to go through and define which column inch or which order these numbers get published in.”
Coverage of the deferred bill hearings can be found at SDPB.org.