How to Vote While Traveling In Your RV

(first published in December 2022).

One question that RVers need to think about is how to vote in elections.  This issue is important for both (1) part-time RVers who maybe away on a long trip and (2) full-time RVers who are absent from their home base jurisdiction (domicile) much of the year. In this blog, I’ll cover the basics, including how we voted in South Dakota for the first time when we knew we would be hundreds of miles away on Election Day.

The bottom line….voting from the road is not easy and takes some planning. Watch this video to learn more!

Step #1: Register to Vote

Of course, the first step to voting is registering to vote before the applicable state’s registration deadline. All states permit in-person and by-mail registration, and several (but not all) states allow online registration.  Some states even permit same-day registration and voting (see below).  This website is a good resource to learn how each particular state handles voting registration and the deadline.

We registered to vote as part of obtaining our South Dakota driver’s licenses so this step was relatively easy for us.

2023 Update on Voting in South Dakota:

• In 2023, several members of the South Dakota legislature sponsored bills (South Dakota House Bill 1232 and Senate Bill 124) that would significantly impact our right to vote. For example, the house bill states that “no person may register to vote using a business location or campground as a registration address.” On February 15, 2023, the South Dakota Senate State Affairs Committee and the South Dakota House State of Affairs Committee both voted to defer SB 124 and HB 1232 to the “41st legislative day.” Because there are no more than 40 legislative days in a session, both bills were effectively killed.

  A separate bill (SB 139) did get enacted into law. For purposes of voting, “ the the term, residence, means the place in which a person is domiciled as shown by an actual fixed permanent dwelling, establishment, or any other abode to which the person returns after a period of absence.” Further, South Dakota (Section 12-4-1) now requires an applicant to attest, under the penalty of perjury, that the applicant “has maintained residence in South Dakota for at least thirty days prior to submitting the registration form.”

  We are keeping an eye out for how the South Dakota Secretary of State’s Office and the local election authorities will interpret this new law as it pertains to full-time RVers who have chosen to domicile in that state.

Here are some articles discussing the issue:

• SOS Candidate Monae Johnson tells delegates that if elected, her intent is to disenfranchise a group of voters (June 16, 2022)

• Voter-registration law has gap, county auditor says (September 29, 2023)

• Auditors: New voter residency rules difficult to manage for local election officials (October 8, 2023)

2024 Update on Voting in South Dakota:

The 2024 legislative session is seeing further attempts to restrict voting by RVers. As originally introduced in December 2023, SB 17 requires a person to maintain a residence “for at least thirty days in the three hundred and sixty-five days immediately prior” to submitting the registration form. This proposed amendment will also be retroactive to any person who registers to vote on or after July 1, 2023. During the legislative session, the Senate approved an amendment to the bill that would remove the 30-day requirement. However, the South Dakota House failed to advance the bill.

Legal Challenges to the New Voting Laws

Challenges to the South Dakota Voting Law

For the June 2024 primary election, Jessica Pollema filed challenges two precincts in Minnehaha County (Sioux Falls): (1) precinct 5-16, which has a polling place at the downtown Sioux Falls public library, and (2) precinct 4-16, which uses Word of Life Pentecostal Church as its polling place. Pollema, an “election integrity” activist, challenged the votes of hundreds of registered voters in those precincts with addresses associated with mail forwarding companies like Dakota Post and Your Best Address. Although the challenge was rejected by Precinct Board 5-16, Precinct Board 4-16 upheld it — which ment that 132 ballots were not counted. The ACLU and the League of Women Voters sent this letter to the South Dakota Secretary of State and the local Recount Board, indicating that such actions were unconstitutional. Ultimately, the Recount Board decided to count all of the challenged ballots

Facial Challenges to the South Dakota Voting Law

So far, no one has come forward to challenge the new South Dakota law on its face.  However, challenges are currently being made to similar durational residency requirements in other states.   See Washington State Alliance for Retired Americans v. Hobbs, Case No. 3:23-cv-06014, U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington; North Carolina State Alliance for Retired Americans v. Hirsh, Case No. 1:23-cv-837, U.S. District Court, Middle District of North Carolina.  The complaints in these cases state:

1. The Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) prohibits states from preventing otherwise eligible voters from voting for president and vice president based on how long they have resided in the state before election day. And the United States Constitution prohibits such requirements in all elections.

2. Section 202 of the VRA is explicit: “No citizen of the United States who is otherwise qualified to vote in any election for President and Vice President shall be denied the right to vote . . . in such election because of the failure of such citizen to comply with any durational residency requirement of such State or political subdivision.” 52 U.S.C. § 10502(c) (emphasis added).

3.  Likewise—regarding all elections—the United States Supreme Court has held that “[d]urational residence requirements” that “completely bar from voting all residents not meeting the fixed durational standards” deprive voters of the fundamental right to vote and “impinge[] on the exercise of a second fundamental personal right, the right to travel.” Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 336, 338 (1972).

4. To be sure, both the VRA and the U.S. Constitution allow states to impose short, pre-election registration requirements, and to limit registration and voting to bona fide residents. Specifically, the VRA authorizes registration deadlines up to 30 days before a presidential election, 52 U.S.C. § 10502(d), and the U.S. Constitution allows pre-election registration deadlines where “necessary to permit preparation of accurate voter lists,” Marston v. Lewis, 410 U.S. 679, 680–81 (1973).

5. But a registration requirement is different from a pre-election durational residency requirement, which the VRA absolutely prohibits in presidential elections, 52 U.S.C. § 10502(c), and which impinges on fundamental rights to vote and travel, with no adequate justification, in all elections, Dunn, 405 U.S. at 343–60. Both the VRA and the U.S. Constitution protect voters from being denied the fundamental right to vote simply because they moved to a new address shortly before election day, if they otherwise comply with the state’s registration deadlines and other requirements.

(emphasis in original). Similar arguments could be made in South Dakota. We are keeping tabs on these cases as well.

Step #2:  Understand Your Voting Options

States vary widely in how their citizens may vote.  The following ways are likely pertinent to RVers on the road:

• Absentee Voting With an Excuse.   Some states require voters to state a particular reason to vote with an absentee ballot (whether voting absentee in-person at the election office or voting absentee by mail). To receive the absentee ballot, a registered voters must submit a written request.

• Absentee Voting Without an Excuse.  Some states permit voters to vote with an absentee ballot without any reason (whether voting absentee in-person at the election office or voting absentee by mail). To receive the absentee ballot, the registered voter must still submit a written request. This is often referred to as “no-excuse absentee voting.”

• Same-Day Registration and Absentee Voting.   Some states allow a voter to go in-person to the election office, complete the absentee ballot request, and then immediately receive the ballot and vote. 

• All Mail Voting.  In some states, registered voters are automatically mailed a ballot to their voting residence address on file. If the voter is away from the voter’s mailing address, a voter may submit a form so that a ballot can be sent to another address.

• Early Voting.   Some states allow voting prior to Election Day during specified times and locations designated by the state and local election office.   This is sometimes called “advanced voting.”

The  US Vote Foundation is a good resource to learn about the voting methods in each state. 

South Dakota permits absentee voting without an excuse so this is the route that we selected.

Step #3:  Obtain Your Absentee Ballot

While some states permit absentee ballot requests to be submitted online, others require paper copies be mailed or submitted in person to the local election office, perhaps with some sort of proof of identity.   The state’s Secretary of State’s Office and local election office website will likely be the best resource for understanding how an absentee ballot request must be submitted.

For example, when voting in the 2022 midterm elections, in our home state of South Dakota, the absentee ballot request form instructed: “Please print and return to the county auditor in the county you are registered.” I interpreted that statement as requiring that we print out the absentee ballot request form mail the printed form back to the county auditor. The absentee ballot form also indicated that it would need to be notarized or accompanied with copy of the voter’s driver’s license. 

Step 3a:  Print Forms and Make Copies (If Applicable)

Most RVers do not have printers in their RVs so printing an absentee ballot request forms can be cumbersome.  Likewise, most RVers do not have copy machines in their RVs so “makin’ copies” of a driver’s license won’t be as easy (or as funny) as SNL’s Rob Sneider thinks. Lastly, 99.99% of RVers don’t have an on-site notary. While places like Walgreens, Staples, Office depot often have printer and copier services, another good resource for those services is the local library. 

We were going to be camped in Fayetteville, Arkansas during the 2022 midterms. Luckily, the local library offered both printing and copying services, as well as free notary services. Thus, to submit my absentee ballot request, the steps I took were:

• Download the absentee ballot request from the South Dakota Secretary of State’s Office

• Fill out the absentee ballot request (unsigned)

• Travel to the Fayetteville Library and print out the absentee ballot request (unsigned)

• Sign the absentee ballot request and make a copy of it (for my records)

• Make a copy of my driver’s license at the Fayetteville Library  

Note: AFTER I did all of this, I noticed that the Pennington County Auditor’s Office does permit absentee ballot requests to be submitted via email. Because South Dakota has adopted the Uniform Electronic Signatures Act, I now think that I could just e-sign the absentee ballot request. Thus, next time, I’m going to try to electronically sign the absentee ballot request (using the /s/ signature designation or inserting an image of my signature), take a photo of my driver’s license, and then email both to the auditor and see if that works. If that is acceptible, this step #3a can be omiited.

Step #3b:  Designate a Mailing Address for the Ballot

Another issue that an RVer may have is determining where the ballot should be sent. Our voter registration address is our America’s Mailbox mailing address in Box Elder South Dakota.  For a fee, this company scans the front of all of our mail, and we can then have the company shred, open, or forward the mail to us.  

While many campgrounds and RV parks permit their residents to receive U.S. mail, many do not.  We happened to be staying at a campground that would not let us receive mail. Thus, we had to figure out how we would actually get a ballot sent to us.   Luckily, many U.S. post offices provide a General Delivery service.  Basically, a voter may use the local post office as the voter’s mailing address to receive mail.  So, when I filled out our South Dakota absentee ballot request, I designated a local post office as the place where my ballot would be sent.  After mailing in the absentee ballot request form, I then went to the post office about ten days later and sure enough, my ballot was there waiting for me.

Presumably, for states that offer voting by mail, General Delivery should work for receiving a ballot in a similar manner.

General delivery also let us bypass the use of America’s Mailbox in the voting process. We didn’t need to have South Dakota send the ballot to our America’s Mailbox South Dakota address and then have America’s Mailbox forward the ballot to us. Of course, had our campground allowed us to receive mail there, we could have designated the campground as our mailing address. However, for some reason, I feel that using the USPS General Delivery seems more secure than using the campground as our mailing address when it comes to something as important as voting.

Not all post offices permit General Delivery so it is best to call and make sure that the post office you want to use does offer General Delivery.

Step #4:  Vote in a Timely Manner

Voting with an absentee ballot or all-mail voting require a voter to proactively plan to vote.  First, the voter needs to submit the request in enough time to actually receive the ballot and send it back in sufficient time.  Some states require the ballot to be actually received by Election Day for it to count.  Other states require that the ballot be postmarked by Election Day and then received within a certain number of days thereafter.  A good resource to find out about each state’s deadline is here.

RVers need to plan ahead so that they are at a location long enough to receive the ballot. In my case, I started the process about a month before Election Day. Luckily, South Dakota has a secure Voter Portal that permits each voter to track the status of their ballot. South Dakota received my request for an absentee ballot about three days after I mailed it. It took another three days to before the Post Office received the ballot, and I could pick it up at the Post Office. South Dakota received my ballot about three days after I mailed it. Thus, in the future, at a minimum, I will probably need to start the absentee voting process at least 10 days prior to the election.

Final Thoughts

Voting is a right. At least for me, it’s an obligation and duty that I owe to my country. Sure, it was a hassle to fill out all of the forms and make some trips to the local library and post office. I wish it was easier, and that we could all vote securely online. Until that day comes, I’ll continue mark my calendar for the next election :-).