What started as a cavalcade of petition campaigns for South Dakotas November 2024 ballot has become more manageable for voters to follow.
Of the eight citizen-led ballot questions approved for circulation, three will definitely meet the signature threshold to make the ballot, according to News Watch analysis and interviews with political leaders and ballot sponsors.
Those three measures are the constitutional amendment to legalize abortion, the constitutional amendment to establish open primaries and the initiated measure to eliminate South Dakotas sales tax on groceries. That comes with the caveat that legal challenges could still occur, particularly with the abortion bid.
The latest effort to legalize recreational marijuana in South Dakota is making a late surge in signature gathering and also has a chance to qualify for the 2024 ballot, according to News Watch analysis of all the petition campaigns.
People are discovering how hard it is to actually get something on the ballot, said South Dakota Open Primaries chairman Joe Kirby, a Sioux Falls businessman and government reform advocate. Getting tens of thousands of signatures, especially given South Dakota weather, is not an easy task.
The citizen-led measures will be joined by one legislative resolution from the 2023 session, a proposal to change outdated male-only references to South Dakotas governor and other officials in the state constitution and statutes.
Legislators also passed Senate Joint Resolution 501 during the current session, an effort to amend the constitution to impose work requirements for Medicaid eligibility.
That means five or six ballot questions will be put to voters in the general election on Nov. 5. Thats on par with the average number (5.6) qualifying for on-cycle South Dakota ballots since 2000. The highest numbers of certified ballot measures during that period were 11 in 2006 and 10 in 2016.
The number of verified signatures needed to qualify initiated measures for the ballot is 17,508, which represents 5% of the total vote for governor in the last gubernatorial election. Constitutional amendments require 35,017, which is 10%.
Heres a look at the status of this years citizen-led ballot efforts:
Likely headed for 2024 ballot
Open primaries
The campaign to establish top-two primaries for governor, Congress and state legislative and county races is well-funded and largely non-partisan, guided by political veterans representing Republicans, Democrats and independents.
Its also staying under the radar as the proposed abortion amendment draws most of the headlines and counter-messaging.
Its nice to have more controversial issues out there, said Kirby. But I think whats really happened for us is that the stars have aligned. Republican leadership in South Dakota sees this as a solution to some of their problems.
The theory is that open primaries, rather than incentivizing candidates from taking extreme positions to win a partisan primary, will help lower the volume to produce officeholders more reflective of the general electorate.
This comes at a time when ultra-conservative factions such as the South Dakota Freedom Caucus have gained more traction within the Republican ranks.
South Dakota Open Primaries has collected about 42,000 signatures as of March 1 and expects to meet its goal of 50,000, said Kirby. The group has several dozen volunteers but gets the vast majority of its signatures using paid circulators.
Abortion amendment
There has been plenty of political friction surrounding this effort to reverse the states near-total abortion ban and enshrine access to abortion in the South Dakota Constitution.
Opposition has come from expected places, such as a Decline to Sign campaign from anti-abortion group Life Defense Fund and legislative efforts to allow petition signers to withdraw signatures that have already been submitted to the Secretary of State for certification.
Dakotans for Health, the progressive group behind the petition, told News Watch that it will likely file a lawsuit if House Bill 1244 allowing signature withdrawal passes. Groups such as the League of Women Voters of South Dakota have questioned the bills constitutionality and emergency clause, which would allow it to take effect immediately and not be referred to voters.
The abortion amendment also has received pushback from unexpected sources. Organizations such as Planned Parenthood North Central States and American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, steadfast advocates of abortion rights, have expressed concern about the amendments language and timing.
Getting enough raw signatures wont be a problem for Dakotans for Health, which has used volunteer and paid circulators to compile more than 50,000 signatures as of March 1, according to co-founder Rick Weiland. He added that most of those signatures have gone through in-house validation as the group prepares for legal challenges as part of the certification process.
Grocery tax repeal
Dakotans for Health is also sponsoring an initiated measure to prohibit the state from collecting sales tax on anything sold for human consumption, except alcoholic beverages and prepared food.
The statewide poll in November co-sponsored by South Dakota News Watch showed that 61% of registered voters support the proposal, which would eliminate the 4.2% state sales tax on groceries. The measure would not affect the up to 2% sales tax on groceries charged by municipalities in South Dakota.
The proposal is staunchly opposed by the Republican-dominated Legislature, which approved a cut in the states general sales tax rate from 4.5% to 4.2% during the 2023 session thats due to expire in 2027.
The fiscal note for the grocery tax measure indicates it could reduce annual state sales tax receipts by $124 million.
Opponents said that could stress the states budget when combined with the rate change on general sales tax.
Weiland notes that Gov. Kristi Noem promised a grocery tax cut as part of her 2022 re-election campaign, a plan ultimately rejected by lawmakers. The governor took the rare step of testifying for her grocery tax repeal bill during the 2023 session, insisting that the budget was strong enough to absorb lost revenue and that voters wanted the tax repealed.
Shes taken a lot of wind out of the sails of the opposition, said Weiland, who said his group has collected more than 20,000 signatures for the measure. She has made it clear that this will not be a financial burden and that its something that the people want.
Marijuana legalization
Two pot-related measures were approved for circulation: one to legalize the possession, use and distribution of marijuana for recreational use and another to repeal South Dakotas medical marijuana program.
Neither sponsor responded to interview requests from News Watch or provided estimates of signature totals. Of the two, the initiated measure to legalize recreational pot is considered a viable contender to make the ballot.
Petitions for the cause have become more visible in recent days at signature gathering sites such as the Minnehaha County Administration Building.
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