For Immediate Release:
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Contact: Chris Nelson
605-773-3537
www.sdsos.gov
Secretary of State Chris Nelson announces today:
Voter Registration in South Dakota has just gotten easier. A new system has gone into effect that is a new portal to seamless voter registration. Now, when an applicant fills out a Driver License / I.D. Card Application at an exam station, he will find a new section included on that form. Voter registration cards have been available at exam stations since 1994 only as separate forms. But now we have distilled the Voter Registration Application and inserted it into the driver application form, while keeping all the essentials. The first question in the Voter Registration section is, "Do you want to register to vote or change a name, address, or party affiliation?" The applicant must provide a physical location of residence and provide the particulars of any former voter registration for cancellation. One signature covers the license application and voter registration.
The application is entered on-site by driver license personnel into the Department of Public Safety computer system. The system automatically generates a separate voter registration application form complete with the applicant's signature, which is electronically transmitted to the appropriate County Auditor's office. This form is available the next morning for printing to paper, which is then checked and processed in exactly the same manner as any other voter registration application form. If the application is acceptable, the County Auditor will file the registration, send the voter an acknowledgement of the registration, and up-load the new or updated voter registration to the Office of Secretary of State for entry into the statewide system.
This new process in no way compromises any of the checks for accuracy that the Office of Secretary of State has been implementing over the last few years in creating its Statewide Voter Registration System. It is simply an automating process-an electronic transfer of information-that is going to save lots of people lots of time. This is all about efficiency.
I want to officially thank the Driver Licensing Program in the Department of Public Safety and the Bureau of Information and Telecommunications for their hard work with me in making this project come together.
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