Parties repeat mistakes as Republicans set elections back and Democrats fail to find a key candidate

Maybe politics in South Dakota is cyclical. Or maybe the state’s political parties just keep making the same mistakes. Either way, both parties have taken actions, or inactions, that eerily resemble their past actions.

At their state convention in June, Republicans once again chose to jettison their incumbent secretary of state. This time, delegates at the convention were in favor of someone who would like us all to use polling booths as time machines so we can go back to an age when ballots were counted by hand.

At the 2022 convention, Monae Johnson, an election integrity candidate, upset incumbent Steve Barnett. She did this by claiming he was putting a dangerous emphasis on technology by pushing for online voting and online voter registration. This year, Johnson was cast aside as convention delegates selected Heather Baxter, a legislator, as their nominee.

This year Johnson told convention delegates: “I trust the county auditors and I fully support the use of secure, tested ballot tabulators.” Big mistake.

State’s top election official loses nomination to challenger who supports hand-counting

Baxter’s candidacy was based on a platform that calls for hand-counting ballots. She got 59% of the vote in the convention hall. Maybe she churns her own butter, too, and just likes to do things the old-fashioned way. Whatever the reason, she’s promising to take South Dakota elections back in time for no good reason.

When she was running for office the first time, Johnson would never give a straight answer about whether Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020. However, she’s right about the reliability of tabulating machines. They work fine and they’re more accurate than hand counting.

Republicans may be back in the same position in four years after Baxter finds out what Johnson already knows: there’s a difference between being an agitator for change and an elected official. Johnson’s original backers are upset that she didn’t do more to instill integrity in South Dakota elections. The lesson here is that our elections already have plenty of integrity and they certainly don’t need to be slowed down to the pace of hand counting.

Democrats made some news at their convention, too. Only it’s not who they nominated but who they didn’t nominate. It seems that the always candidate-starved Democratic Party won’t be running a candidate for attorney general. Again. They’re leaving a blank spot on the ballot next to the words attorney general for the second election in a row and for the fifth time in the last eight elections.

The Republican candidate will be Lance Russell, a former legislator and the state’s attorney for Fall River and Oglala Lakota counties. It took two ballots for Russell to defeat two other candidates seeking the nomination for attorney general.

Somehow Republicans could come up with three people who wanted to be attorney general. For Democrats, the cupboard was bare, even though there’s no easier way to get on the general election ballot than running as a Democrat. Maybe there are no Democratic lawyers in the state with experience in law enforcement or as prosecutors. But a lack of experience didn’t keep Republicans from nominating Jason Ravnsborg eight years ago.

Maybe there aren’t any Democratic lawyers willing to take one for the team. It would seem to be worth the effort, though, as being in the office boosted Bill Janklow to the governor’s office and will serve as a launching pad for Marty Jackley’s likely election to the U.S. House of Representatives.

This is supposed to be a good year for Democrats in November. Some people are predicting a blue wave. In South Dakota, it’s more likely to be a blue trickle.

Yet, it’s hard to understand why there isn’t a Democratic candidate for attorney general. It’s true that the candidate would be running against odds that heavily favor the Republican candidate. But the payoff could be huge in the event of an upset.

A Democratic attorney general in heavily red South Dakota would stand out nationally. If the presidential pendulum swings back to Democrats in two years, a Democratic attorney general from South Dakota could be in line for a place on the federal bench or an appointment as U.S. attorney. Maybe Democratic lawyers in this state don’t dream big enough.

Russell, the Republican candidate, may have all the qualifications to serve as attorney general. Qualified or not, the fact is that he’ll slide into the attorney general’s office not because voters of the state chose him but because he was the most popular candidate at a convention of 700 delegates.

Something needs to change. An office as important as attorney general shouldn’t be left to the whims of a convention full of Luddites who prefer the prospect of hand-counting ballots. Democrats need to fulfill their obligation to find candidates up and down the ballot so that voters have a debate on the issues and a choice at the polls. If something doesn’t change, this cycle of mistakes is bound to continue.