Tom Cool hopes to leverage Monae Johnson's 'election integrity' focus, become SD's top election official
Nov. 5—SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Whenever the entire Democratic ticket lines up to give speeches one at a time, Tom Cool, the party's candidate for secretary of state, opens in the same manner.
"You should vote for [gubernatorial candidate] Jamie Smith and [Senate candidate] Brian Bengs this year," Cool will say after introducing himself. "But if you want them to get re-elected, you have to vote for me, too."
The beginning may be coy, but it also underscores a central question in the race for the state's top election official: whether Cool's Republican opponent, Monae Johnson, believes that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
In a widely-shared
interview
with KELO-TV, Johnson, when asked if "Biden won the 2020 presidential election legitimately," said she was "not going to acknowledge that."
She took a similar tact in a
recent interview
with the nonprofit South Dakota Searchlight, though she did say that Biden "won the nation."
Johnson did not respond to a request for an interview from Forum News Service.
Before announcing her run, Johnson worked as a secretary in the office of the secretary of state for 8 years. Prior to that, Johnson was a small business owner; business filings are another key component of the secretary of state's office.
She
writes on her website
that "election integrity" is the core value of her campaign. She adds that she is "against voter fraud, online voting and online voter registration."
Under current law, online voting and online voter registration are not allowed.
Both Cool and Johnson have publicly stated an intent to comply with the provisions of a
court ruling
requiring the state to better implement a national voting rights law designed to proactively register voters. The violations mainly occurred within reservations.
"I did talk to some Native leaders and said, 'If elected, I want to come back out and talk to them about ways we can try to help that along,'" Cool said.
At the Republican convention in June, Johnson was chosen by the delegates over incumbent Secretary of State Steve Barnett, a longtime politician in South Dakota who served eight years as state auditor before his last four as secretary of state.
"You just normally do not oust an incumbent secretary of state who has done a fairly decent job as far as I think most of them are concerned," Cool said.
Though he has not received public support from elected officials in the Republican party, Cool does say that, through conversations with voters, the choice of Johnson over Barnett made a sizable contingent of conservatives move their support.
"I think there are a number of Republicans that were upset by what was done at their convention," Cool said. "And hopefully, they'll vote for me."
Jason Harward is a
Report for America
corps reporter who writes about state politics in South Dakota. Contact him at
605-301-0496
or
