The Government Oversight and Audit Committee, or GOAC, subpoenaed South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson.
Committee members expressed frustration with the secretary for failing to answer questions related to a voter registration system.
“I move to place on the agenda consideration of a subpoena to require Monae Johnson, Secretary of State, to appear before this committee," said Rep. Marty Overweg, who is Vice-Chair of GOAC. The subpoena comes after legislators claimed Johnson failed to appear before the committee to give testimony on a voter registration system some question.
SD Canvassing, an election integrity group, has called into question the KNOWiNK contracts with the Secretary of State’s Office. The company provides electronic poll books. She testified in May before GOAC, but members on the committee claim she didn’t fully answer questions regarding the state’s contract.
Overweg called the motion “one [GOAC] had to do.”
“I think it’s been said pretty much of what all of us think the job of the Secretary of State is," Overweg said. "I would just like to add my personal opinion of how, I believe, unprofessional this is that we have to go this route when an elected official will not come and answer to the people who they serve, and that is us acting as this committee, that we’re the people’s voice.”
The committee voted 10-0 to subpoena the Secretary of State, for failing to appear multiple times before GOAC after saying she could. GOAC Chair Taffy Howard said they had requested Johnson’s appearance at Thursday’s meeting.
“We were told she would be here, and then now she is not here. We were informed yesterday she would not be here, so," Howard said. "There are a lot of questions. Election integrity is a critical issue to every citizen of this state.”
Howard said with Monae Johnson being the top election official in South Dakota election integrity is her duty.
Sen. Ernie Otten is on GOAC. He said it’s time for the committee to “step up.”
“And I do feel that we have been slighted, and that we’re actually being treated since it is a Constitutional office, that we’re being treated as below that,” Otten said.
In a statement to SDPB, Secretary of State Johnson called safe elections her "top priority" as Secretary.
“I told the GOAC Committee that today wouldn’t work for my testimony because of a County Auditor training, and I sent a letter responding to their questions," Johnson wrote. "I’ll continue to work with them to transparently do my job for the people of South Dakota.”
GOAC’s next meeting is Nov. 13.
