In 2022, Monae Johnson was elected South Dakotas secretary of state. Since then, she has earned another title: Queen of Irony.
Her reign started at the state Republican convention when Johnson and her election integrity minions expressed displeasure at the lack of effort by Steve Barnett when it came to ensuring the security of South Dakotas elections. Her complaints about election security were enough to make Republican delegates cast aside an incumbent and give the nomination to Johnson.
As a candidate, Johnson was consistently, maddeningly coy about what she thought about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Struggling to get Johnson to declare if Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the election, a South Dakota Searchlight columnist likened the effort to trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. Johnson would not say what she thought of the election outcome, at the same time claiming that she did not want to be labeled as an election denier.
Her non-denial denial sent a clear message to right-wing South Dakotans that she was on their side. While Johnson was busy dodging questions about who had won the presidential election, grassroots organizations were springing up that had no qualms about claiming that Donald Trump had been robbed. They made it their mission to harangue county auditors, county commissions and election workers in the name of election integrity.
One of the ironies of that effort is that half of it is wasted in South Dakota. Elections here had plenty of integrity before the naysayers emerged. Their work, inspired by the denier-in-chief Donald Trump, wasnt needed in South Dakota since Trump won the state by 26 points. Trump, it seems, only seeks to root out election corruption in those states where he lost.
A lengthy piece by South Dakota News Watch detailed the efforts of organizations like South Dakota Canvassing Group and Midwest Swamp Watch to strengthen the states election laws. It also noted the influence of activist Rick Weible in Johnsons campaign and the grassroots election integrity effort.
Swept up in the national conservative mania for election integrity, the South Dakota Legislature, top-heavy with Republicans, ushered through bills that made voting safer or more difficult, depending on your perspective. In 2023, the Legislature voted to ban ballot drop boxes as well as endorsing legislation on residency requirements, post-election audits, tabulation equipment testing and voter-roll updates.
Johnson formed a committee to study how to conduct post-election audits. While she campaigned for office on election integrity and transparency, she kept the public and the media away from last summers committee meetings.
In the meantime, something happened to Johnson. According to the News Watch story, she broke off her association with Weible, the election integrity advocate. Once safely in office, perhaps Johnson realized that the road to reelection would be tougher if she kept up the drumbeat that South Dakotas elections werent as safe as they could be. In late November she released a brochure: A Guide To Understanding Secure Elections. The brochure talks about the security of using paper ballots and the lack of voting online, offers assurances that tabulation machines are not connected to the internet, touts safeguards in voter registration and voter ID requirements and seeks to recruit poll workers.
(The brochure, equal in size to two pieces of typing paper, contains Johnsons name five times, lest anyone forgets who is the secretary of state.)
One statement in Johnsons news release announcing the brochure belongs in the Irony Hall of Fame. Secretary Johnson and the county auditors stand united in ensuring that elections are conducted transparently and securely in South Dakota.
These are the same county auditors that Johnson tainted with her campaign questions about election integrity. These are the same county auditors being harassed by Johnsons former allies in the election integrity effort, South Dakota Canvassing Group and Midwest Swamp Watch.
Voters chose Johnson to replace Steve Barnett after delegates at the Republican convention decided he wasnt doing enough to secure the states elections. However, despite Johnsons status as an outsider looking to shake things up, the statement she made about standing united with county auditors is one that Barnett or any of his predecessors could have made.
Perhaps the ultimate irony isnt that South Dakota voters chose an election denier to run their elections but that it looks like what they got was someone whos acting quite a bit like a secretary of state.
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