ACLU alleges voter registration problem

Associated Press    23 October 2004

RAPID CITY, S.D. - According to the American Civil Liberties Union, some South Dakotans might be disenfranchised Nov. 2 because county officials wrongly rejected their voter registration applications.

Brian Sells, who works with the ACLU Voting Rights Project in Atlanta, said Friday that a voter-registration worker told him some applications were denied because two boxes on the forms were left unmarked. The boxes ask if the applicant is a U.S. citizen and will be 18 by Election Day.

Leaving them blank is not legal cause for rejecting the form, Sells said.

He said he has heard about rejected applications in Hughes, Bennett, Jackson and Shannon counties.

"In most instances, these rejections came early enough that people were able to go back, check those boxes and ultimately get on the rolls," Sells told the Rapid City Journal. "What I really have no idea about is how many people this has affected who haven't been able to get on the rolls."

The ACLU wants the state to tell county auditors that the check boxes are not enough reason to reject applicants and to accept any that were rejected for those reasons.

Secretary of State Chris Nelson said he will have to review the request first.

Nelson said he doesn't think it's a big problem - if it's a problem at all. He said only a couple of people have talked with him about the check-box issue.

And Nelson said he's skeptical of the ACLU's claims about the impact. "I sincerely doubt that it's thousands" of people affected, he said.

Sells faxed a letter about the issue to Nelson and Attorney General Larry Long on Friday.

The secretary of state said he would decide on Sells' request sometime in the coming week.

Election law requires that the applicant be notified if such information is missing, according to Sells. And both questions are required in other parts of the application, he said. If the information is provided elsewhere, unmarked check boxes are an "immaterial omission" that doesn't void the application, Sells said.

Fall River County's deputy auditor, Sue Ganje, said she does not know about any voter-registration cards from either Fall River or Shannon County that were rejected due to unmarked check boxes.

"I'm positive we have not done that," she said.

Fall River County handles election issues for Shannon County, home of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

She said about 100 voters could not be registered because they didn't have a complete address or driver's license or Social Security number and officials couldn't reach them to get the missing information.

Julie Pearson, Pennington County auditor, also said she had not rejected any applications because of unmarked check boxes.