This and that: SD primary election day is today! (Whew!)

We have to share this cartoon, with deepfelt gratitude that the primary election season is over here in the Sunshine State.

The campaign signs are every 25 feet or so in the usual places on the main streets through the area. The radio advertisements (we don’t watch television) for the candidates are about 9 out of 10. In some cases, because of who is running, the adverts are both for their business and their candidacy for office X. Even our cell phone conversations are preceeded and followed instantly by campaign ads. The mailboxes are full of political junk mail, not just the usual home handyman and real estate junk mail.

But there is more to it than this frustration and nuisance value.

South Dakota is a “red state.” (Ironic, isn’t it, that the standard color for the GOP is “red” – which inadvertantly reflects its origin in the Socialist immigrants who escaped from the failed revolutions across Europe in 1848.) Which means that for most offices up for reelection in 2026, it is the primary election that counts. Like Wyoming, there is a tiny minority of Democrats in the legislature or in most other offices. (The exceptions, as always, are the Reservations and the university towns.) But many people who align more with the left-liberal claimed tenets of the modern Democratic Party therefore register and run as Republicans. A LOT of “RINO” types.

So for those registered as Libertarians, Constitutionalists, Natural Rights, or Pink Flamingo party members, we have to watch and cringe. And in many places, we don’t even get to see much in the way of Democratic candidate signs!

To more serious matters. A correspondent wrote about election integrity: Both sides agree on one fact: noncitizen voting is illegal everywhere; they disagree on whether another new federal law will improve enforcement.
Suggest: “Both sides claim to agree on one fact:

It is pretty clear that in places like CA, MI, and MN, many of those opposing this and other measures do not care if it is illegal – indeed they claim it is “constitutional” and a fundamental right in a “democracy.” Making a law is worthless if it cannot be enforced. And we do have a very serious problem with taking the power to regulate elections from the States and give the FedGov yet one more power.

For everyone caught (and supposedly prosecuted) for illegal voting, we suspect there are 5 or even more who got away with it. Several studies indicate that. Just as I suspect that the numbers are inaccurate when they claim very low numbers of actual incidents of illegal voting. 

We will always have illegal voting, just as we will always have murder, theft, and breaking the speed limit. And we have always had it: there is no doubt that way back in 1804 or even 1800, there were votes illegally cast in Federal and State elections. New laws and new regulations will not end that.

What would make more sense to many of us (lovers of liberty, that is)? Reducing and eliminating the power of governments and those elected to office to control us. Thus reducing both the temptation to cheat on elections and cutting the negative effects of electing crooks, idiots, and ne-er’do’wells to positions of authority.

But that is no doubt too simple a solution in 2026.

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