November 9 was the deadline for South Dakota initiative petitions for the 2016 election. On November 9, two initiatives that would alter South Dakota elections were submitted. The requirement is 27,740 valid signatures.
One initiative sets up a non-partisan redistricting commission for legislative districts. Its backers submitted 40,400 signatures. If it passes, the legislative districts would be redrawn in 2017. After that, of course, the commission would operate in the year after each census. The measure has no impact on U.S. House districts because South Dakota only has one district.
The other initiative makes all elections non-partisan, except for President. No party labels would appear on the ballot, except for President. Because the measure is backed by two prominent Democrats, opponents of the measure are already saying that this is just a Democratic plan to remove party labels from the ballot because otherwise Democrats can’t win important office in South Dakota. Those two Democrats are Rick Weiland, the 2014 Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate; and Drey Samuelson, chief of staff to former U.S. Senator Tim Johnson. Johnson is the last South Dakota Democrat who served in the U.S. Senate. The non-partisan initiative turned in 39,182 signatures.
South Dakota also will have a referendum on SB 69, a measure that would change signature requirements; restrict partisan voters from signing independent petitions; and move filing deadlines earlier.
Currently, candidate petition signature requirements are based on votes cast in the gubernatorial race. The new requirement would be based on registration. The percentage is the same (1%), so the effect may be to increase the number of signatures (turnout is less than 100%, which would tend to increase the number of signatures; but candidates of the major parties typically receive more votes than they have registered voters, which would tend to decrease signatures).
SB 69 would forbid persons affiliated with a qualified party from signing the petition of an independent candidate.
Filing deadlines would be moved from 45 days to 65 days before elections.
SB 69 would clarify the distinction between No Party Affiliation, and Other, by classifying responses on the form such as “Independent”, “Ind”, “I”, “None”, etc. as being “No Party Affiliation or Independent”. This may avoid accidental creation on an ‘Independent Party’.
South Dakota generally, but not universally, elects two representatives from each senate district. These elections are like Arizona, where a voter may cast two votes, rather than like in Washington, where the two representatives from a district are elected by position.
So these House primaries would be by Top 4.
The independent redistricting commission measure is brain-dead. It appears that they copied parts of measures from other states.
The current legislative districts are not particularly horrible. There is no reason to redistrict in 2017.
The plan would require the board of elections to create pools of 10 Democrats, 10 Republicans, and 10 others. It appears that they intended to have a drawing, like in California, but forgot to put that in. Instead the board of elections would select 3 Democrats, 3 Republicans, and 3 others (actually it says not more than 3 of a party, so it could be 3 Republicans, 1 Libertarian, 1 Constitution, 1 Green, and 3 independents.
Decision-making would be on a 5/9 vote, setting up the potential of an Arizona situation, where the “independent” member sided with the Democratic members on decisions such as choosing the Republican counsel, vote-trading, and hiring as the mapping consultant a firm with no redistricting experience, and which specialized in Democratic micro-targeting.
In Arizona, the four partisan members chose the “independent” chairman. Other choices included someone who had a framed picture of Nancy Pelosi, and someone who was described as being so far left-wing, that the Arizona Democratic Party would be like Barry Goldwater in comparison.
The measure would apply only to the legislature, because that is what is says. It has nothing to do whether or not South Dakota has one or more representatives.
The measure calls for the commission to establish a grid map. This is from the Arizona commission, but Arizona had never actually developed their final map from their gird map. And they forget that South Dakota is already gridded by the public land survey system, and has townships.