The South Dakota House of Representatives has passed a bill that would make it illegal to deposit absentee ballots in drop boxes for all elections.
This bill, which would require all voters to return mail-in ballots either by mail or in person, was advanced to the state Senate after the lower chamber voted 57-11.
The new legislation would prohibit the distribution of pre-filled mail-in ballot applications, as well as increase punishment for mail-in voting misdemeanors.
In addition to the restrictions placed on turning in absentee ballots, county auditors will also be unable to send out absentee ballots following the Monday before Election Day.
Republican state Rep. Kevin Jensen praised the legislation, saying, “It will clean up our elections. It doesn’t infringe on anybody.”
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Kirk Chaffee, summed up the anticipated outcome of the bill, saying, “Easy to vote, hard to cheat.”
The use of ballot drop boxes has become a serious point of contention in recent elections, with many videos being released of USPS workers dropping large stacks of absentee ballots into drop boxes, which they are not permitted to do.
The USPS District Manager Rick Moreton of the MI 1 District explained to 100 Percent Fed Up that postal workers “are only allowed to deliver ballots to the specified address on the piece of mail.”
In one video released by 100 Percent Fed Up and The Gateway Pundit, a man dressed in street clothes is captured on surveillance footage exiting the front passenger seat of a postal worker’s truck and stuffing a stack of ballots into a Detroit drop box. The same man was captured a second time later on that same day doing the same thing.
Another video released by 100 Percent Fed Up and The Gateway Pundit showed a female UP Postal worker making multiple trips to an absentee ballot drop box. On her fourth and final trip, the worker pulls up in a vehicle that is not an official USPS vehicle, but she is still wearing her uniform and again deposits a large stack of absentee ballots into the drop box.
South Dakota is not the first state to move towards restricting ballot drop box usage. Last year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled them illegal, and, in January, Ohio restricted the number of ballot drop boxes to one per county and now requires photo identification as a requirement for voting.
