The South Dakota Office of Hearing Examiners has affirmed that to receive public records, the Oglala Sioux Tribe need not pay the City of Martin’s “outside legal fees incurred in producing the records.”

The ACLU’s educational, organizing and lobbying efforts will be focused primarily on voting rights, free speech and expression, LGBTQ+ and Two Spirit equality, Indigenous sovereignty and justice, and bodily autonomy and abortion rights.

The City of Martin, S.D., wants the Oglala Sioux Tribe to either waive its sovereign immunity or pay an unknown amount of exorbitant attorneys and administrative fees upfront in order to receive public records related to the city’s new redistricting map.

Injecting the state legislature into lawsuits that challenge the constitutionality of election laws threaten judicial independence by limiting courts’ power and injects politics into state judiciaries.

Our elected officials should be doing everything they can to encourage people to vote – not making it harder, as House Bill 1217 would do.

Jac Franken from Sioux Falls, Keatyn Wede from Mitchell, Carter Linke from Vermillion and Paul Harens from Yankton share the reasons why they vote in videos in the ACLU campaign.

The ACLU of South Dakota, Equality South Dakota and the Transformation Project have released a tip sheet for South Dakota’s election workers that details best practices for interacting with gender non-conforming, non-binary and transgender voters. 

The ACLU of South Dakota’s campaign – amplified through digital and outdoor advertising, direct mail, an expansive email program and social media outreach – is encouraging voters to make a plan to vote, whether that’s absentee by mail or early at their county auditor’s office or in-person on Nov. 3.

Providing voters more easily accessible, secure options to return their absentee ballots is a common-sense solution to ensuring everyone can cast their ballots safely and securely in the 2020 General Election.