SDCL § 6-1-11: Form of certain public records--Duplicate--Computerization.

Whenever the creation, maintenance, or storage of any public record is specified by state law for political subdivisions, such record may be in the form of punched cards, magnetic tapes, disks, and other machine-sensible data media within a data processing system. Such records shall be backed up by a duplicate, be accessible to viewing members of the public, and be retained in accordance with all applicable requirements for the retention of manual records. To the extent an office is computerized, the office need not keep a hard, paper copy. If current public records are converted to a computerized format, the political subdivision may destroy those records which the state records destruction board has pursuant to § 1-27-19, declared to be of no further administrative, legal, fiscal, research, or historical value.