The waiting room at the driver licensing is empty on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. Exams were closed due to a state-wide power outage for government systems. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
South Dakota state government telephone systems and websites went down across several departments Tuesday, limiting systems and services.
One woman filling out driver’s licensing paperwork at the Sioux Falls One Stop Tuesday afternoon yelled in exasperation over the news. There was no signage to warn her driver’s license exams were closed, just an empty waiting room and blank TV screens.
She was informed about the closure by a passerby, and later a state Department of Motor Vehicles staff member.
People looking to get marriage licenses and vehicle registrations experienced similar hassles Tuesday across South Dakota.
As of Tuesday evening, the reason for the power outage behind the state’s technical difficulties – and people’s frustrations – was still unknown.
Department of Revenue homepage on Aug. 19, 2025 during a state government network outage. (Courtesy of South Dakota Department of Revenue)
Bureau of Information and Telecommunications spokesperson Lisa Rahja said it’s not clear how long the power outage will impact state operations and services, she said.
“The event affected all state-hosted services and some network communications,” Rahja said in an emailed statement. “The state engineer and BIT technical staff have investigated the root cause and are taking measures to remediate.”
The data center is not a single location, Rahja later told South Dakota Searchlight, but rather the term used by the IT bureau to refer to all the hardware scattered across multiple locations and connected to the state’s communications network.
Rahja said the state was still looking into the cause and extent of the outages. But the situation was not weather-related, she said, and that “there’s no reason to believe there’s any other external factors.”
“We’re trying to really get that back up and running, but we can’t even nail down what part of it is having the issues, because it’s all very large and complex for the entire state.”
An incident command center was launched Tuesday to streamline communications between the bureau and the office of the state engineer as they work to resolve the issue.
Outages across multiple departments
Some websites were entirely down Tuesday, including websites for the secretary of state, attorney general, auditor, treasurer, bureau of finance and management, as well as departments of social services, education, agriculture and natural resources, tourism, tribal relations and public safety.
The state’s medical marijuana page was down even as the state’s Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee met in Pierre. SD.net, the state-run service that streams government meetings, only streamed portions of that committee’s Tuesday meeting. Coverage was also spotty for the audio stream of the state’s Rules Review committee.
South Dakota’s transparency website, Open SD, and the website that hosts meeting agendas, minutes and calendars for dozens of state regulatory and oversight boards and commissions were also affected.
Calls to the state Department of Health, which maintains the medical marijuana page, were dropped throughout the day. The state Department of Public Safety posted on Facebook that it would close driver’s license exam stations until network service returned. A note on the Department of Revenue homepage said the department and clients were having issues accessing the state’s online filing system.
A South Dakota Department of Motor Vehicles kiosk screen says the machine is out of service on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. The failure is part of a statewide government network outage. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
The state Legislature and Unified Judicial System sites were working, though the UJS homepage said “connectivity issues” might prevent some online features from working, including the state’s eCourts system.
In a post on X, Attorney General Marty Jackley apologized for a lack of public access to his office’s services
“You may not be able to reach our office at this time,” Jackley said.
Local impacts
Local agencies that rely on South Dakota state network access were impacted on Tuesday. The Minnehaha County Treasurer’s office in Sioux Falls, for example, was unable to access the records needed to issue license plates and vehicle registrations.
“Computer issue — no registrations can be printed,” a sign at the treasurer’s office read. “We can review your paperwork.”
Down the hall at the Minnehaha County Register of Deeds, county employees were unable to access any state records on births, deaths or marriages. People could pay in advance for records they’d need to get at a later date, Assistant Treasurer Vicki Fuglsby said, but only if they paid cash.
The system for accepting credit card payments is tied to the state and wasn’t working, Fuglsby said.
“We had to turn away people looking for marriage licenses,” Fuglsby said.
The Lawrence County Treasurer’s office in Deadwood, like every other Treasurer’s office in the state, was unable to print vehicle registrations on Tuesday. Typically, there’s a mailing fee for customers who ask that records be sent, said Sally Atkinson, the First Deputy Treasurer in Lawrence County.
On Tuesday, attendants took checks and prepared paperwork for registrations, titles and the like, and offered to send the documents without the fee.
“It’s not their fault. They drove up here to get this done, and now they can’t,” Atkinson said.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
