 |
| Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0 |
While Senate Majority Leader John Thune hems and haws about getting the SAVE America Act to President Trump’s desk, his home state just showed him up by passing its own version of it.
The South Dakota House of Representatives passed SB 175 on Wednesday. Much like the SAVE America Act, SB 175 seeks to require documentary proof-of-citizenship for residents registering to vote. The House approved the measure in a veto-proof 64-3 vote after it successfully cleared the Senate (28-6) last month.
Sponsored by South Dakota Freedom Caucus Vice Chair and GOP Sen. John Carley, the bill now heads to Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden’s desk to be signed into law.
SB 175 stipulates that any individual seeking to register to vote in South Dakota must be a U.S. citizen and have “provided sufficient evidence, as set forth in section 3 of this Act, to demonstrate the individual’s citizenship.” Such persons must also meet criteria such as being a resident of the precinct they’re registering in and being at least 18 years old “[o]n or before the next election.”
The measure goes on to list various forms of documentation that individuals must provide in order to register to vote. This includes driver’s licenses or nondriver identification cards issued by South Dakota or other U.S. states and territories, “provided that the license or identification card was issued after July 1, 2025, and indicates that the individual has provided sufficient documentation to demonstrate that the individual is a United States citizen.” --->READ MORE HERE
Legislation that would require South Dakota citizens to prove they are U.S. citizens when they go to register to vote won Senate approval on Thursday.
The 28-6 vote now sends Senate Bill 175 to the other side of the Capitol for consideration by the House of Representatives.
Republican Sen. John Carley of Piedmont is prime sponsor. The amendment made to the bill Thursday resulted from a suggestion by Deputy Secretary of State Tom Deadrick. The two sat down together in the Senate earlier this week.
“That was from Secretary of State, working with them to come up with this,” Carley explained about the amendment.
The South Dakota Secretary of State office oversees how elections are conducted throughout the state.
Last week, Deadrick had testified against the bill at its Senate State Affairs Committee hearing. The two people who testified in support of the bill, Jessica Pollema and Rick Weible, are leaders of South Dakota Canvassing, a self-proclaimed pro-Trump voter-integrity group that backs hand counting of election ballots.
The Senate committee killed Carley’s bill on a 5-3 vote. But Carley used a legislative procedure known as a smoke-out to force the committee to send it to the floor. He then prevailed in getting the bill put on the Senate debate calendar Thursday.
The legislation lays out the documentation that would be needed to prove citizenship in order to register to vote.
The options include:
A South Dakota driver license or nondriver identification card, provided that the license or identification card was issued after July 1, 2025, provided that the license or identification card indicates that the individual has provided sufficient documentation to demonstrate that the individual is a United States citizen --->READ MORE HERE
If you like what you see, please "Like" and/or Follow us on FACEBOOK here, GETTR here, and TWITTER here.
No comments:
Post a Comment