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Interesting article about voter registration in Pennington County, SD. Supposedly 162 voters use their address as the Rapid City Walmart.
And the link to RVing is:
Current Auditor Julie Pearson, who is not seeking re-election, said the practice of registering to vote with a north-side Walmart address originated many years ago with people who traveled full-time in recreational vehicles and sometimes stayed overnight in Walmart parking lots.
Wonder if they will try to block those folks from voting in SD, much like happened to Escapees back about 1999?
That was the attempt in 2016 and it failed, big time.
2016 on SD or Escapees? I wasn't aware of that.
I use the Escapees SD address and voted by mail in 2016
It was in the article. A Rapid City congressman wanted to deny voting to people not physically in the area.
Rapid City has never impressed me as real RV friendly I was stationed there in ‘70, formed the impression then & reinforced it often since.
We've summered here the last four years... Hart Ranch RV Resort... quite friendly.
A Rapid City congressman wanted to deny voting to people not physically in the area.
Could be a politician just looking for some sort of campaign issue?
If you read through the article, the voters registered at the Walmart address date from an era before the existence of the SD mail services and the use of the affidavit that all of us traveling SD residents now have to sign. The article says that the number registered as living at Walmart used to be much larger.
The politician that wanted to exclude "virtual" residents from voting was afraid that those voters could skew the direction of the local economies for themselves. What the politician missed that he was proposing the very thing the United States broke away from England. We RVers don't pay a lot of taxes in South Dakota but we do pay some and the politician was proposing taxation without representation. He thought he had a cause but is was myopic.
Wonder if they will try to block those folks from voting in SD, much like happened to Escapees back about 1999?
There was something in the article about being able to drop non-voters after a total of 8 yrs.
I am in the camp of voting is a privilege that should be exercised. I believe that if you skip a couple of elections, you should be removed from the voting list.
All voting lists are poorly maintained and something that we as a country should improve.
The politician that wanted to exclude "virtual" residents from voting was afraid that those voters could skew the direction of the local economies for themselves. What the politician missed that he was proposing the very thing the United States broke away from England. We RVers don't pay a lot of taxes in South Dakota but we do pay some and the politician was proposing taxation without representation. He thought he had a cause but is was myopic.
I don't particularly agree with your argument. I travel quite a bit, as I'm sure you do also. I pay taxes wherever I travel, yet I don't get any representation in those places on local issues.
I personally don't buy the argument that we RV'ers shouldn't get to vote because we don't actually live there. However, I can certainly see the other side of the discussion and I don't see it as a "taxation without representation" issue. The issue I see is that folks who come into a small community and flood the area with voters who have tremendous influence over that area, yet don't have anything at stake can be scary to locals.
The example already mentioned is a good one. Polk County, TX is a conservative small community in the Bible Belt of East Texas. There you have thousands of people from other areas of the country who come in, establish residency, and essentially have the power to elect all local officials. These "outside" voters may or may not necessarily share the same values of those who actually live and work in the area, the people who are actually being directly affected by those elections. You must admit that can be scary and cause resentment among the locals.
So far, the residents of Polk County and their "virtual" neighbors seem to get along fairly well. Escapees has shown itself to be an asset to the community and the locals appear to appreciate that. However, I can see where they are just one local referendum or one school bond vote away from serious conflict.
I'm not suggesting that RV'ers who establish residency somewhere shouldn't get to vote, I'm simply saying that it's not as cut and dry simple as some want to make it. JMO
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