Amendment J would amend South Dakota’s Constitution to clarify that an individual must be a United States citizen to be eligible to vote. The measure was placed on the 2026 ballot by the Legislature. Its core effect is constitutional wording about voting eligibility rather than a detailed new voter-identification system. The debate is therefore whether explicit citizen-only language adds useful legal clarity and durability, or whether it constitutionalizes a qualification already addressed elsewhere while potentially inviting future disputes about how citizenship should be verified. A constitutional rule can clarify who is eligible without saying how election officials prove it. Voters should separate the principle of citizen-only voting from later arguments over documents, databases, and ballot procedures.
Should South Dakota’s Constitution explicitly say that only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote?