South Dakota's Secretary of State Shantel Krebs certified Rick Weiland and Drey Samuelson’s open non-partisan primary petition. If passed, all voters will be able to vote for every County, State, and Federal official, except for the President.
Under Amendment V, instead of holding separate primaries for Democratic and Republican candidates, there will be one primary election in June, with all candidates from all parties, plus Independents, on the same ballot. Every voter from every party, including Independents, would get to vote on the same ballot, for whichever candidates they want. The top two Primary vote-getters for each office, or in races like State House, where voters have two seats to fill, the top four vote-getters, would advance to the General Election.
Under the proposal, all candidates would have the same signature requirements to petition their way onto the Primary ballot. Candidates would appear only by name on the ballot, without any indication of party affiliation.
Secretary Krebs calculated there was 29,924 valid signatures out of 44,095 submitted. That’s a 32.14% error rate, the third worst error rate of the eight ballot measure petitions certified this year.
Weiland and Samuelson’s new ballot initiative group, TakeItBack.org, is promoting these three measures as a trifecta of reforms that can transform South Dakota politics.
Reform Amendments and Measures on 2016 Ballot:
Amendment V weakens both parties by taking their branding off the ballot, but in a state where lots of voters look no further than the R, Amendment V offers Democrats and Independents a bit more of an advantage. Amendment V further weakens Republicans by allowing all voters, including Independents, to participate in Primaries, Democrats currently allow Independents to participate; Republicans do not. All candidates will thus have to present more centrist agendas to win enough votes to survive the Primary, and in South Dakota as in many other places, Democrats are far closer to the center than typical Republican candidates.
Amendment T is the anti-gerrymandering independent redistricting plan. It weakens the majority party by taking away their power to rig legislative district boundaries.
(I)nitiated (M)easure 22 checks the majority party’s corruption with an Independent Ethics Commission and tougher lobbying and revolving-door restrictions. IM 22 also counters the big money that keeps the majority in power by offering public campaign financing to willing candidates.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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