I was well aware that former City of Sioux Falls Deputy Chief of Staff (who left the administration suddenly with little to no explanation) was behind this baffling legislation;
T.J. Nelson, a lobbyist for Opportunity Solutions Project, a conservative advocacy group that has pushed for restrictions to absentee voting in state legislatures, also issued warnings while working with legislators and county auditors to make it “easier to vote but harder to cheat,” a mantra used by supporters of early-voting reforms.
“Other states have a lot of issues with people just going out and pre-filling these absentee request forms, doing the work for the voter except signing their name, and then dumping ballots,” Nelson testified. “We need to make sure someone isn’t taking a hundred ballots and stuffing them into a ballot box.”
If a ballot is signed by the voter in a sealed envelope how is this fraud? Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny can drop your sealed ballot in a drop box at 2 AM if they wanted to, it doesn’t change the status of your vote OR your valid signature. As pointed out in the article, a USPS box is NO different then a drop box since you can still mail in a ballot. Oh, there is a difference, a postal box is less secure.
I believe the absentee voting rhetoric actually cost councilor Stehly her re-election to city council (she lost by less then 100 votes). There was so much fear out there that I think many old school conservatives and Republicans who supported Stehly simply didn’t trust the system and either didn’t vote absentee or voted at all.
When you have a state with 50% of it’s registered voters identifying as Republican why would you want to limit their voting opportunities? Drop boxes are invented to assist ALL voters no matter your political stripe so when you limit access to Indies and Democrats you are essentially limiting Republicans also.
I sometimes wonder how these supposed right-wing activists get around with all the holes in their feet.