contextual material is gleaned from secondary sources and legal rulings. We include in the Appendix a comprehensive listing of all South Dakota voting rights cases. Quantitative Data As noted earlier, no one has collected information about the numbers of American Indians, who have served or currently are serving in elected office. Just compiling such a list for even South Dakota is a daunting task. There are more than 500 incorporated municipal entities (towns and cities) in South Dakota, as well as 66 counties and many other local governmental entities. None of the local government associations, such as the South Dakota Association of County Commissioners, have data on the race, gender or even party affiliation of the elected officials associated with their organizations. We were, however, able to obtain lists of current and former state legislators from an archivist in the capitol’s library. Getting data about the make-up of county commissioners turned out to be more challenging. Most of the county commissioners serve on a part-time basis and have very limited staff support. We found that that best way to get information about the demographics of commissioners was by telephone and then persevere until we were directed to someone knowledgeable and willing to talk. This has turned into a very labor intensive process. We chose not to try to get information from the more than 500 incorporated town and cities and other local government entities. The effort involved in collecting this information would have been enormous and unlikely to turn up anything different from what we have found with respect to representation in state legislative and county council seats. Representation in the State Legislature
contextual material is gleaned from secondary sources and legal rulings. We include in the Appendix a comprehensive listing of all South Dakota voting rights cases. Quantitative Data As noted earlier, no one has collected information about the numbers of American Indians, who have served or currently are serving in elected office. Just compiling such a list for even South Dakota is a daunting task. There are more than 500 incorporated municipal entities (towns and cities) in South Dakota, as well as 66 counties and many other local governmental entities. None of the local government associations, such as the South Dakota Association of County Commissioners, have data on the race, gender or even party affiliation of the elected officials associated with their organizations. We were, however, able to obtain lists of current and former state legislators from an archivist in the capitol’s library. Getting data about the make-up of county commissioners turned out to be more challenging. Most of the county commissioners serve on a part-time basis and have very limited staff support. We found that that best way to get information about the demographics of commissioners was by telephone and then persevere until we were directed to someone knowledgeable and willing to talk. This has turned into a very labor intensive process. We chose not to try to get information from the more than 500 incorporated town and cities and other local government entities. The effort involved in collecting this information would have been enormous and unlikely to turn up anything different from what we have found with respect to representation in state legislative and county council seats. Representation in the State Legislature
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