Where I Stand on Elections and Voting Integrity

I learned about trust in systems the hard way. Eight years ago a family court case brought my son to Rapid City, and I followed him here. For years, everything I loved depended on whether the rules in one courtroom got applied straight. That experience burned a lesson into me: when people stop believing a process is fair, they do not just doubt the outcome. They quit showing up. And when good people quit showing up, the process belongs to whoever is left.

Elections run on that same trust. You cannot demand it from voters. You have to build it where they can see it.

One vote

In March 2025, a Shared Parenting bill I fought for failed in the South Dakota House by a single vote. Thirty-five yeas. Thirty-four nays. One more yea and Shared Parenting would already be law.

So when somebody shrugs and tells me one vote does not matter, I do not argue. I tell them that story. Then I follow the thread to the part nobody likes to say out loud: if one legal vote carries that much weight, then one illegal vote does that much damage. It cancels somebody real. A nurse coming off a night shift. A retired teacher downtown. A kid in North Rapid voting for the first time.

That is my whole principle on this issue. Every legal vote counts. Every illegal vote cancels one that should.

What I will fight for

If District 32 sends me to Pierre, here is the plan, in plain English:

1. Proof of citizenship to register to vote in South Dakota. Today you sign a line swearing you are a citizen, and nobody asks for the paper. We run the most important qualification on the honor system. That is backwards.
2. Photo ID and a verified chain of custody for absentee and mail-in ballots. The standard you meet at the polling place should follow your ballot wherever it travels: traceable from request, to return, to count.
3. Real residency requirements, and an end to mail-forwarding abuse. A mailbox is not a home. If your entire tie to South Dakota is a mail slot in an office park, you should not be choosing the people who write laws for the family next door.
4. Geographic signature distribution for initiated measures. Before a measure reaches the statewide ballot, it should show real support across South Dakota, not just signatures gathered in two big-city parking lots by paid crews.
5. Higher thresholds for constitutional amendments. The constitution is the operating manual for everything else, and it should be harder to change than an ordinary law. Right now a bare majority on a single Tuesday can rewrite it. Out-of-state money knows that.

Those five lines are the pillar. Now let me take the pushback head on, because you deserve answers, not slogans.

"Fraud is rare here. This is a solution in search of a problem."

Good. I want it to stay rare, and I want you to be able to prove that to your most skeptical neighbor.

You lock your truck on a good street. You put a smoke alarm in a house that has never burned. Safeguards are not an accusation. They are how a good thing stays good. And rare is not the same as harmless. We just watched a bill die by one vote. In margins like that, a handful of illegal ballots is not a rounding error. It is the outcome.

One more thing, said plainly: our elections are run by county auditors, clerks, and volunteers who take the work seriously. Strong rules do not insult those people. Strong rules protect them, because when every ballot is verifiable, nobody can smear the folks who counted it.

"Proof of citizenship and photo ID will keep legal voters from voting."

I take this objection seriously, because the first half of my principle is that every legal vote counts. I mean both halves.

You already show photo ID to board a plane, open a bank account, and pick up certain prescriptions. Voting decides who governs all of that, and it deserves at least the same care. If a legal South Dakota voter is missing a document, the answer is to help that voter get the document. The answer is not to lower the standard for the entire state.

Simple for citizens. Closed to everyone else. I will not accept a system that fails either half.

"You want to gut absentee voting."

No. Absentee voting stays. Your grandmother votes. The rancher hauling cattle votes. The college kid studying out of state votes.

My position is one sentence long: the ballot that travels should meet the same standard as the ballot cast in person. Photo ID with the application, and a verified chain of custody from request to count. That is not a barrier. That is a receipt. You should be able to confirm your ballot made the whole trip and got counted.

"Residency rules punish RVers who legally claim South Dakota."

South Dakota has made itself a home base for people who live on the road, and most of them follow the rules exactly as written. My quarrel is not with travelers. It is with a system that lets a mail slot stand in for a home.

The principle is simple: the people who live under South Dakota's laws should be the ones choosing who writes them. If this state is genuinely your home, a real residency standard costs you nothing. If your whole connection to it is a forwarding address, it should not come with the power to pick leaders for the family that actually lives here.

"South Dakota pioneered the citizen initiative, and you are taking it away."

South Dakota was the first state in the nation to put the initiative in citizens' hands, and I want it to stay a citizens' tool. That is exactly why it needs guardrails.

Geographic signature distribution means an idea has to find support across South Dakota before it reaches the ballot, instead of renting its signatures from paid crews working two cities. And a higher bar for constitutional amendments means out-of-state donors do not get to write their experiments into our founding document on a bare majority.

Yes, this makes ballot campaigns work harder. That is the point. An idea with real support across this state can clear the bar. An idea renting its support cannot.

The ask

I am a dad, a businessman, and a community advocate with a Juris Doctor. A family court case brought my son to Rapid City, I followed him here, and the fight that followed taught me exactly what it costs when people cannot trust a system with what they love. I do not want one South Dakota voter feeling that way about an election.

On November 3, 2026, District 32 picks two state representatives. I am asking to be one of them.

Read the full platform, pillar by pillar, at zac4sd.com. If you are with me, volunteer or chip in while you are there. Every legal vote counts. Let's make sure of it together.