Story thread · 2 reports / 2 sources

Monae Johnson questioned vote-counting machines. Running elections changed her mind.

votebeat.org · 3hShare

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. This news analysis was originally distributed in Votebeat’s free weekly newsletter. Sign up to get future editions, including the latest reporting from Votebeat bureaus and curated news from other publications, delivered to your inbox every Saturday . Four years after far-right Republicans helped elect Monae Johnson as South Dakota secretary of state, she’s backing a Democrat to replace her . The cross-party endorsement is unusual. But the more interesting story is how Johnson got to this point. Johnson ousted a GOP incumbent in 2022 with support from activists who distrusted electronic vote-counting machines and wanted South Dakota to rely more heavily — or entirely — on hand-counting. Her own rhetoric was plenty skeptical too. In a fundraising letter that spring, Johnson wrote that “all across America we’ve seen questionable results in national, state, and local elections.

First report: South Dakota’s long, strange trip with Monae Johnson — southdakotasearchlight.com, 2d