Mayor TenHaken is promoting voter suppression

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Not only does our Mayor HATE transparency and openness in local government, but now he is actively supporting voter suppression.

Trust me, I was pretty shocked that the SD ACLU got involved, when we pointed out the irregularities in the School Bond vote (super precincts in only the southern part of town and hand counting by finance staff) they virtually ignored us. This time thankfully they are stepping up;

The government should never require citizens to play roulette with their health in order to vote. That’s why we’re pushing Mayor TenHaken to think creatively and work with County Auditor Bob Litz to install additional ballot drop boxes ahead of the November Election

BACKGROUND: Recently, the city of Sioux Falls denied Minnehaha County Auditor Bob Litz’ request to place absentee ballot drop boxes at five Sioux Falls libraries. While Siouxland Libraries is jointly operated between the city and the county, Sioux Falls City Hall has authority of the libraries located within city limits.

TenHaken’s reasoning for the denial was a lack of time to iron out the necessary security details. The Mayor and his team can do better. 

Defenders of the mayor have said that ‘He actually has utterly nothing to do with the November election.’ They are correct on that point, and I have told Auditor Litz in person that he is in charge of the election and has wide authority. The problem? He has to have permission from the city’s top executive to place the drop boxes on city owned property. Despite what others are saying, Bob did ‘ask’ the city for that permission. I asked Bob, “Why is the mayor so against your proposal?” Bob figures he was mad because he wasn’t included in the plan. But this is where Bob made a great point, and I am paraphrasing, “If I would have asked permission from the city before putting together a plan, they would have said to me, come back with a plan. So I did the legwork and worked up a plan before I asked.” You would have thought the mayor would have been appreciative. Nope. When Bob said the city doesn’t have the ‘stones’ to move forward, I’m guessing he was talking about the chief executive, who I have argued does have ‘stones’ mostly in his head. The mayor didn’t even have the leadership and courage to contact Bob himself in an email or phone call, he had one of his communications minions tell Bob NO.

As for the security issues, first off, they could have had a couple hour meeting with the chief of police, the sheriff and the risk manager and worked out those details. As for people stealing a drop box, highly unlikely. They would have been secured to the ground and under 24/7 camera and light surveillance and most likely emptied each day. Also, take into account that stealing ballots is a crime that has some hefty penalties. And even then, what would be the point? You would be stealing ballots from both sides, so it would serve no nefarious purpose.

This is just part of a larger right-wing wacko conspiracy theory that drop boxes and voting by mail is riddled with fraud. This has been proven to not be the case.

I encourage the city council to put a resolution together to make it happen, we still have almost 20 days to get it done.

I don’t know if I am more disappointed in the mayor for believing such nutty theories or that he supports blatant voter suppression. Auditor Litz is right, grow a pair and while your are at it, a brain.

Minnehaha County State’s Attorney office to become a very, very, very Dark Place

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The scariest news from yesterday’s election is the installation of another ‘Haggar’ in our local government. How do these right-wing whackos from the same family keep getting elected? I’m baffled by the ignorance. Both kids have played games with residency and dear old dad runs the SD chap

It’s unfortunate that the Dems didn’t put up a candidate to run against him in the fall.

If you think a ‘conservative Republican’ is going to give two-sh*ts about social and criminal justice, you are sadly mistaken. People like this in our justice system are the exact reason we have so much turmoil right now with equality in our country.

UPDATE: Minnehaha State’s Attorney Candidate Bengford seems to be concerned about residency

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I had to chuckle a little bit about Paul’s concern;

A candidate for State’s Attorney is accusing his competitors of violating residency requirements for living outside of Minnehaha County.

Paul Bengford, an assistant city attorney for the city of Sioux Falls pursuing the county’s top prosecutor’s job, this week took to radio airwaves and reporters’ inboxes calling on two others in the race to suspend their campaigns because they have residences in Lincoln County.

“Crystal Johnson and Daniel Haggar have broken faith with voters by filing petitions falsely claiming each has a primary residence in Minnehaha County,” Bengford said in a news release Wednesday.

UPDATE: First of all, it is completely legal to be a State’s Attorney and live in another ‘adjoining’ county. Marty Jackley served in a county he did not live in. If it is a small county. It doesn’t apply in Minnehaha;

7-16-31. Residency requirements for state’s attorney in counties with low population. In any county with a population of less than five thousand persons, no state’s attorney is disqualified from holding office for failure to be a resident of that county if the state’s attorney is a resident of a county which is contiguous to the county in which the state’s attorney holds such office.
Source: SL 2004, ch 69, § 1.

But the concern really made me chuckle, because Bengford has been an attorney with the City of Sioux Falls for several years and has never said anything about the massive amount of city employees who don’t live in Sioux Falls or pay property taxes here. For example one of the city attorneys lives in Madison, our Fire Chief lives in Canton (he told councilors when he was appointed to the job that SF wasn’t a safe place to raise kids) and our Library Director lives in Minnesota. I think I was told once about a third of the city’s employees don’t live in Sioux Falls. I have often recommended that at least management and directors have a requirement to live in the city they serve, especially someone who works in public safety like our Fire Chief. Many councilors have told me they were not really concerned about it, so no ordinances have been proposed. It is pretty obvious Bengford is just trying to make this into a political football. Remember, Paul was the city attorney who went after Cameraman Bruce for a raspberry bush in his fenced off back yard as a public nuance. Bengford lost that case and many other code enforcement cases. Not only is Paul not qualified to be State’s Attorney, he barely is qualified to be a city attorney.

Vote for Crystal Johnson.

I also chuckled about Daniel Haggar defending his residency. His sister Jenna was rumored to be living out of state with her husband while serving her last year in the legislature. The legislature was asked to investigate the claims, but nothing was ever done about it. She resigned after the session was over.

In the middle of a pandemic, the Minnehaha County Commission decide to beat up Treasurer Nelson

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This is pretty nasty. One of the few offices with the county that actually is still open and risking their health and well being is the treasurer’s office and decide to pick on them. Nelson told me after the meeting she has asked for the plexi-glass for years and didn’t give it to her until now. (FF 1:12)

To bad they didn’t have this concern with the AG’s office. Oh, that’s right, that office costs us money while the treasurer’s office is essential for maintaining the budget and the bloated salaries of our county commissioners. They are nervous, because if that office closes all Hell breaks loose. The only concern our commissioners seem to have right now is if they can collect taxes from us, pathetic.