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December 12, 2002 9:20 a.m. The South Dakota Vote: Who Will Investigate? The state’s attorney general shows little enthusiasm.

n South Dakota today, some Republicans are questioning state attorney general Mark Barnett's recent statements downplaying allegations of improprieties in last month's senatorial election.

Barnett has dismissed many of the allegations as "local election-board management problems." Among them are several complaints about Democratic actions inside polling places across South Dakota. For example, a number of election workers told National Review that on Election Day, Democratic lawyers who had come to the state from Washington, New York, California, and other party strongholds, set up get-out-the-vote operations, complete with files and phones, inside polling places.

The Democratic tactics appear to violate a South Dakota law which aims to create a politics-free polling place, plus a 100-foot politics-free zone around polling places. Specifically, Title 12-18-3 of the South Dakota code states that "No person may, in any polling place or within or on any building in which a polling place is located or within one hundred feet from any entrance leading into a polling place, maintain an office or communications center..." On November 13, Chris Nelson, the state election supervisor (and newly-elected secretary of state) told a local paper, the Todd County Tribune, that, "That type of office operation to conduct a partisan campaign operation should not have been happening at the polling place."

But Barnett issued a quick dismissal of the allegation. "That's not a crime," he told another paper, the Rapid City Journal. "That's a lesson plan."

Barnett's comment appeared to suggest that the Democratic strategy is a good model for parties to follow in the future. If he is correct, it seems likely that both parties will learn the lesson. In coming elections, they might feel free to convert some of South Dakota's small, one-room voting precincts into sophisticated get-out-the-vote centers, with laptops, communications equipment, and a dispatching service for drivers assigned to bring voters to the polls.

Barnett did not return phone calls from National Review.

Barnett has also made few public comments about a so-far little-noticed problem with absentee ballots. While he has spoken extensively about the case of Becky Red-Earth Villeda, the Democratic activist who is suspected of falsifying hundreds of absentee ballot applications before Election Day, he has not addressed the testimony of several people who cited widespread problems with absentee ballot records at the polls.

According to the affidavits, three observers at different precincts in Dewey County said they saw several voters come to the polls only to be told that absentee ballot requests had been made in their names. "During the course of the day 15 to 20 voters came to vote and the book [of registered voters] indicated they had requested absentee ballots when they had not," said one affidavit. One man, the affidavit continued, "stated that [the] signature on an absentee ballot request was not his." Several others "stated they made no such request." At another precinct in Dewey, a witness saw ten people in the same situation, and at yet another precinct, another observer saw seven people with the same problem.

The affidavits suggest that the issue of absentee-ballot irregularities might be larger than originally thought. But Barnett appeared to dismiss the problems when he told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader that he found "nothing that would take my breath away" in the affidavits. (Barnett has said that his office is interested in investigating three affidavits in which people swore that the driver of a "Tim Johnson For Senate" van offered them $10 to vote.)

Barnett's statements have left some South Dakota Republicans wondering about the aggressiveness with which his office will conduct the post-election investigation. Barnett will leave office next month, to be succeeded by Larry Long, a veteran of the office who was elected attorney general last month. It is not clear whether the change in attorneys general will mean any change in the office's approach to the investigation.

Meanwhile, South Dakota insiders wonder what is behind Barnett's generally dismissive stance toward allegations of voting improprieties. Some believe that the attorney general simply doesn't believe the allegations, if true, are prosecutable, and does not want to pursue any case that cannot be won. But others believe that Barnett is concerned about his political future and wants to avoid a messy investigation with heavy partisan overtones.

Barnett has long wanted to be governor of South Dakota. He lost the race for the Republican nomination last summer after a bitter campaign that was set in motion when Thune, who was widely believed to be a shoo-in for the governor's office, decided to run for Senate instead. Now Barnett, who is 47, is considering his future. Starting an aggressive and controversial investigation into voting irregularities would be a sure way to anger at least half the electorate in his state.

In a sense, Barnett's position is similar to Thune's. Thune declined to call for a recount in the Senate race in part because he too is concerned about his political future and does not want to be involved in an angry and partisan re-fighting of the election. While the decisions of both men are understandable, it is also understandable that some South Dakotans want to find out what happened on Election Day. The affidavits and testimony from election workers point to significant problems in the conduct of the election. But it is not at all clear whether anyone in authority wants to look into them.