South Dakota‘s requirement that a person must live in a “permanent dwelling” to be eligible to vote in the state has been revoked by the House State Affairs Committee.
Last week, the state Senate approved SB17 in a 31-2 vote that would remove a 30-day residency requirement before being able to register to vote. The residency condition passed in 2023, counteracting people who lived in a recreational vehicle but purchased mailboxes in South Dakota.
Federal law prevents residency requirements in presidential elections, prompting the secretary of state to request the bill. Republican state Sen. David Wheeler introduced the secretary of state-backed legislation, saying that the original law was unconstitutional.
“So, at this time, the state statute is in conflict with federal law regarding how we register individuals,” Wheeler said. “I still think there is value in having the conversation about how we ensure that these people who don’t have much connection, the RV voters that people are concerned about, can vote in South Dakota, but it’s not something I think we will be able to deal with effectively in this year. We don’t need to be dealing with lawsuits in the middle of a presidential election year.”
Under South Dakota voting laws, the state required people to register to vote 15 days ahead of the election, while the 30-day requirement called for voters to testify under penalty of perjury that they lived in the state for at least 30 days during the election year, South Dakota Searchlight reported.
A retired U.S. Marine who is working in Germany told the panel he was establishing permanent residence in South Dakota through a mail-forwarding service and planned to vote via absentee ballot before returning to the state.
Republican state Reps. Jon Hansen and Rocky Blare voted against the bill, citing concerns that the new measure would allow people who do not live in the state to be able to vote in South Dakota elections.
“Maybe there needs to be some kind of fix to our system, but I don’t think this is it,” Hansen said. “And I’m really concerned that we’ve heard testimony from individuals that literally have never lived in South Dakota, and yet we’re going to allow them to vote in our elections.”
Republican Committee Chairman Will Mortenson admitted the current voting law was confusing.
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“The process we’ve got currently in place doesn’t make any sense at all,” Mortenson said. “But it’s the middle of an election year, and we have an untenable situation heading into it. We risk volatility in the administration of our elections that I think is also not tenable to me.”
This is the second time in modern history that legislators passed a 30-day residency requirement for voter registration and then had doubts.