Last year, South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson redirected $4.5 million of HAVA funds to pay for an upgrade to the voter registration and election night reporting system called TotalVote. A large portion of those funds were requested for post-election audits, but to date, no paperwork has been filed with the United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC) for a reallocation of those funds.
South Dakota government contracts are required to be posted online at open.sd.gov. We have found some very concerning aspects detailed in the contract with KNOWiNK for a “modernized” version of the now infamous TotalVote system. Some provisions appear unethical, even potentially illegal.
The contract specifically states:
System integration shall include but not be limited to the following:
- On the federal/national level: Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC).
- On the State and local level: Ballot Printers and Tabulators (pg. 39)
The Voter Registration Module includes but is not limited to: Online Voter Registration
Contractors’ system will include end-to-end election capabilities including:
- Interfacing with national and local agencies such as ERIC, Dept of corrections, Driver’s License Division, Division of Vital Statistics, and SSA. (pg. 58)
- Online voter registration application and voter portal site.
On February 23, 2024, Deputy Secretary of State Tom Deadrick presented SB18 to the House State Affairs Committee for legislative approval for sharing the statewide master voter file with other election jurisdictions. (Not third party private NGO’s) During this committee hearing, Deputy Deadrick testified before the House State Affairs Committee that the Secretary of State’s Office would not contract with ERIC.
“So, we’d like to be able to do the crosscheck. And what it would do, it would help improve voter accuracy, help reduce election costs, because we don’t have people on the rolls that shouldn’t be there. All the information would be sent securely, and for those of you who are curious, we have no intention of joining ERIC for numerous reasons, which we don’t need to go into.” – Tom Deadrick
“At this time there is a program out there called ERIC, it’s Electronic Registration Information Center. It seems to be losing member states rapidly, and we’ve never been a member of ERIC and we don’t plan to be a member of ERIC. With that I’ll conclude my testimony and stand by for questions.” – Tom Deadrick
Deputy Deadrick led the committee to believe the Secretary of State’s Office intended only to cross check voter registration lists with other states, including Ohio, that may be implementing voter cross check programs. He also notified the committee that the current TotalVote platform was going to be replaced after the 2024 general election.
In response to a public records request on March 11, 2025, South Dakota Deputy Election Director Rachel Soulek stated that the Secretary of State’s Office has currently not entered into any data sharing agreements between states. After lobbying for SB18 and it’s passage into law, why hasn’t the Secretary of State entered into any voter cross check programs? Is it because they intend to use ERIC instead?
South Dakota is not a member state of ERIC, and the SOS has not been given any legislative authority to connect the voter database to ERIC. Is Monae Johnson illegally connecting the voter database to ERIC? Have other states connected to ERIC without publicly being a member state or having consent from the state legislature?
ERIC is a failed voter registration accuracy program that was created by democrat operative David Becker in 2012 with assistance from The Pew Charitable Trusts, which is funded by Open Society Foundations. Open Society Foundations is a George Soros organization, therefore George Soros funded and started ERIC.
ERIC’s poor performance nationally has caused many states to cancel their contracts in the past two years. Wisconsin, for instance used the ERIC system, and in 2020, had 3.3 MILLION more voters on the rolls than citizens in the state. Motor Voter and Automatic Voter Registration paired with private voter registration firm ERIC literally disallows states to send citizenship information. ERIC creates lists of eligible but unregistered residents using state DMV and social services data with CEIR, one of two groups that funneled $419 million in grant funds from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to government election offices during the 2020 election.
Wisconsin whistleblowers have found that officials send private information (social security number, birthdate, driver’s license number & more) to ERIC. ERIC then shares it with the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), another organization tied to David Becker and George Soros. This data sharing practice is a violation of state and federal privacy laws. It also breaches the language in the agreement between Wisconsin and ERIC. How do we know ERIC will not send South Dakota voter information to CEIR?
Jurisdictions using ERIC have been found to have master voter registration lists with more than 100% of eligible voters. Judicial Watch has sued several states.
ERIC has been found to have only three employees, and no offices, leaving us to wonder who is actually performing the work ERIC claims to do.
In the last few years, ERIC has lost nearly half of their member states due to poor performance and data privacy concerns. States that have more recently cancelled their contracts with ERIC include: Iowa, Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio. Georgia and Wisconsin are considering legislation to withdraw from ERIC.
Virginia pulled out of ERIC listing a variety of reasons, including increased uncertainty and the declining participation of other Republican-led states, concerns about the “confidentiality of voter information” and “controversy surrounding the historical sharing of data with outside organizations leveraged for political purposes.”
SO THIS BEGS THE QUESTION: WHY IS MONAE JOHNSON CONNECTING THE SOUTH DAKOTA VOTER ROLL DATABASE TO ERIC?
After promising the legislature of no intent to use ERIC, the Secretary of State is acting in bad faith towards the legislature, and the people of South Dakota. Even adding the functionality with no intent to use it is not only a waste of money and programming effort, but should also be considered a security risk. With unknown employees of KNOWiNK in St. Louis, MO and any number of unknown subcontractors, the interface could be activated and used without the knowledge of anyone in the Secretary of State’s Office. Remember, we have already found foreign nationals from Kiev, Ukraine contracted by KNOWiNK for GIS mapping services. Do we really even know who has access to our statewide database?
A complaint has been filed with the Government Oversight and Audit Committee, which will be addressed tomorrow. The committee hearing starts at 9:00 AM with the TotalVote Contract at the end of the agenda. You can listen to the hearing HERE. You can find the entire complaint HERE.
Not only is Monae Johnson preparing to interface our voter rolls with a George Soros funded operation, but the contract also mentions interfacing with ballot printers and TABULATORS.
The TotalVote computer is an internet connected system used to upload the compiled vote totals into the election night reporting system. By law, this system must be separate from the tabulators and the ES&S election management laptops, which our election officials claim are hardened, or not connected to the internet. They also claim the tabulators “are not connected to the internet” and have no capability of connecting to anything.
However, in reading the section below, all other interfaces listed on the state and local level ARE electronic.
System integration shall include but not be limited to the following:
On the State and local level:
- Point-based addressing and district data
- Department of Public Health/Vital Records (Deaths)
- Department of Corrections (Felons)
- Department of Motor Vehicles
- Ballot Printers and Tabulators (pg. 39)
We can’t wait to hear the explanation for this one, but it’s one of those things we’ve suspected for a long time. Is it possible the election night reporting system is electronically connected to the tabulators? If it is, this is a clear violation of the law and all equipment must be decertified and discontinued for use immediately.
Monae Johnson is also building an online voter registration portal, which is currently against the law in South Dakota. What is the purpose of this if it’s not even legal?
TotalVote has an array of problems but did you know that all TotalVote users log in information is known by the Secretary of State? Yes, each user must tell the SOS office if they want to change their password, and the SOS office does it for them. How is this even possible in 2025, especially when election infrastructure is national critical infrastructure?
The entire statewide system crashed on Friday, November 1, 2024. Deputy SOS Tom Deadrick claimed Microsoft experienced a global outage, yet no Microsoft accounts or sites report a global outage on November 1, 2024. We have no official explanation for the statewide outage on the Friday before the general election, which caused long lines and voters to be turned away.
There are many more concerns detailed in our report to GOAC, but it appears the Secretary of State has gone rogue and has an agenda of her own. Thankfully, a bill was passed this year returning subpoena power to GOAC. We are sincerely hoping the committee uses all authority given to them to fully investigate TotalVote and to implement some much needed oversight over the election contracts in the State of South Dakota.
It remains to be seen if the GOAC committee will stop the interface with ERIC, built in interfaces with tabulators, and online voter registration portals. How long will unethical, unlawful activities by public officials go unchecked and unpunished? The outcry on the national stage is “When is accountability coming?” We want accountability in South Dakota too. Let’s start with Monae Johnson.
If you share the same concerns that we do, please email the committee your thoughts.
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
