A Sioux Falls resident votes in the city and school board election at Southern Hills United Methodist Church on April 9, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
The South Dakota Secretary of State’s Office is blaming the state Department of Public Safety for errors that allowed 273 non-U.S. citizens to register to vote.
“These non U.S. citizens had marked ‘no’ to the citizenship question on their driver’s license application but were incorrectly processed as U.S. citizens due to human error by the Department of Public Safety,” wrote Rachel Soulek, director of the Division of Elections in the Secretary of State’s Office, in response to South Dakota Searchlight questions.
Noncitizens can obtain a driver’s license or state ID if they are lawful permanent residents or have temporary legal status. There’s a part of the driver’s license form that allows an applicant to register to vote. That part says voters must be citizens.
State officials remove 273 noncitizens from voter roll, but provide few other details