An American Civil Liberties Union observer watches election workers count absentee ballots for Minnehaha County on Nov. 5, 2024, in the county administration building in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – Citizen observers could play an especially important role in the Nov. 3 general election, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota.
“They are a deterrent against bad behavior,” said Samantha Chapman, the organization’s advocacy manager.
The group plans to deploy trained, volunteer observers in Aberdeen, Rapid City and Sioux Falls on Election Day, and is inviting the public to receive training this month in those cities and online.
Observers will document anything out of the ordinary, Chapman said, including instances of voter intimidation, inaccessible polling places, long lines, precincts running out of ballots, or challenges to voters’ registration.
With the control of Congress at stake, President Donald Trump and his aides have refused to rule out interfering in the elections. In an interview with TIME magazine published recently, when Trump was asked about sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to conduct enforcement actions at the polls, he said only that he hadn’t thought of it. He also addressed whether he’d declare a national emergency to impose regulations on the election.
“I don’t rule anything out or in. We’ll see,” Trump said.
New South Dakota laws that impact elections and voting rights also make an observer’s presence more urgent than previous elections, Chapman said. Those include laws that designate registered voters as “federal only” — meaning they can only vote on federal contests, not state and local ones — if they failed to prove their South Dakota residency or U.S. citizenship. Another new law allows voters to challenge another voter’s citizenship.
“With all of those big sweeping changes, we also think it’s critically important to have our election observers there to make sure that no one is being disenfranchised because they don’t understand what these new laws do or do not require,” Chapman said.
During the 2024 general election, the ACLU deployed 40 trained observers to polls in the state’s three largest cities, where observers documented that “our elections are being administered freely and fairly,” Chapman said.
Early voting for the Nov. 3 general election is underway and the voter registration deadline is Oct. 19.
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