A bill requiring citizenship status on South Dakota licenses has cleared its first legislative step. SB 75 passed Senate State Affairs and next heads to the Senate Floor.
The bill would create a mandate for newly issued South Dakota driver’s licenses and ID cards to have a clear mark of the holder’s residency status.
Prime sponsor Sen. Amber Hulse, a Hot Springs Republican, said it’s an effort to crack down on voting fraud.
“Right now, when you go to register to vote and you bring in a South Dakota drivers license, there are people in our state who are noncitizens of the United States that can hold a South Dakota drivers license," Hulse said. "This would make it so that a county auditor could look at that driver’s license and know whether or not that person is a United States citizen. It’s part of a broader package of different bills were bringing to try to strengthen and close some of these loopholes so we don’t have noncitizens voting in our elections.”
For example, a person in the U.S. legally on a temporary work visa could be licensed to drive, but not eligible to participate in elections.
However, Sioux Falls Democratic Sen. Liz Larson wasn’t sold on the practical need for this bill. She questioned Sen. Hulse on exactly how much of a problem nonresident voting in South Dakota is.
“What do we know about the scope of the problem of noncitizen voting in South Dakota,” Larson asked.
“In South Dakota, we’ve actually had issues in drivers licensing because of clerical errors and the way the form is built out that noncitizens were accidently registered to vote,” Hulse answered.
“I’m going to be voting no on this motion," Larson said. "Without the Department of Motor Vehicles or Public Safety, they’re the ones that will need to operationalize this. Even if it’s a color coding or that sort of thing, this is going to be a large project and take a lot of money.”
Alongside Larson’s concerns, some also voiced questions about how the bill could open doors to discrimination. Larson was the lone dissenting vote.