South Dakota GOP Ignores Registered Voters Hit List

If your last name is Wollman or Tschetter consider yourself investigated.

Last week it appeared that all eyes were on the Annette Bosworth trial in Hughes County Court. She was charged with six counts of perjury and six counts of filing false documents related to election campaign laws. What voters did not realize prior to the trial is how Attorney General Marty Jackley came by the information and the lack of Republican leadership that allowed registered Republican voters who signed Bosworth’s election petition to be systematically targeted and investigated by the blogger.

“Look it over. If you notice any Democrats or Independents or non-voters or non-people, or if you want to point out anything else you find interesting about the petition, feel free to leave a comment below. Have fun, everybody!”

Where is the South Dakota GOP to protect their own? The blog owner cites election petitions as “public information,” but federal voter laws made it illegal to post the petition and target voters for their decision. Even in this post, the deeply religious Hutterite Colony is commented on more than once and put forth by the blogger:

“Those seven signatures from the Lakeview Hutterite Colony out by Lake Andes are just page 9.1 out of 213 sheets submitted.”

It was this group’s “four sheets” that were investigated by the Attorney General:

Four of the sheets on which the indictment is based came from Hutterite colonies. Agent Gortmaker thought it “unlikely that candidate Bosworth would visit each of these same colonies numerous days in a row to collect these signatures.” Interviewing members of the colonies confirmed his suspicions. Consider what witnesses on the Millerdale Colony told Agent Gortmaker about Sheet #24:

This Colony had been contacted by phone by Dr. Bosworth and one (1) nominating petition came to them by mail, asking that the petition be signed and she would take care of the rest. A follow-up call was also received in which Dr. Bosworth was asking about the nominating petition as she needed them back in her office by the end of February. None of the signatories on the nominating petition that I interviewed signed in front of Dr. Bosworth, and one individual signed for several others on the nominating petition before it was mailed back to her [Bryan Gortmaker, Division of Criminal Investigation, affidavit supporting arrest of Annette Bosworth, 2014.06.03]

But they did sign. The Hutterites were legitimate voters. They have strict rules about coming into their community.