On March 10, the South Dakota Senate passed HB 1169. It requires constitutional amendments to get signatures in all 35 legislative districts. Currently all the signatures can come from anywhere in the state. The Senate vote was 19-15. The bill had already passed the House.
Awesome!
Donald Trump must complete seal the border
And put a stake through the heart of the satanic globalist new world odor!
Great idea.
The TDS afflicted libtards will just have to seethe and cope
It will only keep getting worse for them
Until the day of the rope!
ALL HOUSES OF ALL STATE LEGISLATURES =
ANTI-DEMOCRACY MINORITY RULE OLIGARCHIES —
1/2 OR LESS VOTES X 1/2 RIGGED GERRYMANDER AREAS. = 1/4 OR LESS CONTROL.
SUPER-WORSE PRIMARY MATH.
EST. 5-12 PCT REAL MINORITY RULE
—
PR IN ALL LEGIS BODIES
Terrific thinking.
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=148912
NOOO USA CYBER-SECURITY FOR STATE ELECTIONS
IS MORON TRUMP A PLANT/MOLE OF PUTIN/XI TYRANT REGIMES ???
Well I’m Donald Trump, the one they’re talking about, if you talk crap about me you’ll get punched in the mouth.
If you disrespect me, forget about it, forget it. Best case for you is you’ll survive to regret it.
I’m the Boss of all Bosses, King of all Kings. I bring the world hope, I’m why we have nice things.
Last time I took human form, I got crucified. This time around, I won’t be so nice.
If you think bad about me, stop trusting fake media. Go to conservapedia.com and read conservapedia.
But even if you’re not smart enough to, or have no eyes to see, you’re still smarter than to take seriously the spambot “AZ”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/03/11/trump-birthright-citizenship-blocked-appeals-court/82268537007/
TRUMP 14-1 BIRTH CASES – 1 CIR
TO SCOTUS SHORTLY ???
https://www.conservapedia.com/Donald_Trump_achievements
South Dakota has lots of rural districts and rural areas can be extremely difficult places to gather petition signatures. Also, if one most of the public has no idea in which leguslative distracts they are located.
This is a bad law.
That’s exactly why it’s a good one.
many low pop states created during/after USA civil war to try to have GOP control of minority rule USA senate forever
AZ666 is the handle of the spambot that is screaming
And if you think Akismet will be installed here you are dreaming
What is the minimum number of signatures that would be needed by district?
666
@Walter
South Dakota requires about 35,000 signatures in total for constitutional amendment initiatives, according to Ballotpedia. My guess is: 1,000 per district
South Dakota and North Dakota have by far the lowest number of required signatures for initiatives and referendums.
@Andy
If the number of signatures is tied to the number of votes, and if rural people congregate at polling places, surely they congregate at other places. Also, not knowing one’s legislative district is not a legal excuse.
The AZ spambot was created by Satan.
@WZ, AC, RW,
The bill would require 5% of the gubernatorial vote in each senate district. The Constitution requires 10% of the statewide gubernatorial vote, which is currently around 35,000. 10% of an average district would be 1000. 5% of an average district would be 500. During debate, there was mention of the only county that is coincident with a single county. It would require 612 signatures.
It might difficult or impossible to determine the number of signatures that are required in some districts. In some counties with parts of two senate districts, the results for *every* precinct shows votes for both districts. This strongly suggests that voters can vote at any precinct, including something called the “absentee precinct” which is countywide. Generally, a precinct will have a bias towards a particular district, suggesting that the precinct is in that district, but that voters from the other district voted in the precinct. Surely (or at least ideally) voters were given a correct ballot based on their residence. But this not indicated in the canvassed results. The SOS might not be able to determine the number of signatures, without a recanvass by the county.
The signature requirements for independent legislative candidates in 2024 has a variable number of signatures. But some districts are noted as containing a “vote center county”. Those districts have a requirement of 50 signatures, which is *less* than almost all other districts. My interpretation of this is “we don’t know how to calculate the number, so just go with this minimum”.
The requirement for independent legislative candidates is 1% of the gubernatorial vote in the district. For 26 districts without vote centers, the independent signature requirement ranges from 68 to 137, which would make the initiative petition range from 340 to 685.
A curiosity is that this was ordinary legislation. The 10% statewide requirement is set in the Constitution – as you would expect for a procedure to amend the constitution. There was a hint that this should have been a constitutional amendment. One senator said that he had introduced such a resolution, but had decided to support the simple bill. He gave an analysis which might have addressed the question of whether legislation was sufficient, but did not tie it to the dichotomy. In essence, the bill does not require more than 10% statewide signatures. If you got 5% in every district, you would have 5% of the statewide requirement, and you could/would still pile up the other 5% in urban districts.
Effectively amending the constitution by ordinary legislation will be challenged in court. It might not be a federal question, and the South Dakota Supreme Court could decline to strike down the bills provisions as merely procedural (e.g. it is probably constitutional for signing to be in blue ink, or to require certain circulator identification).
One senator said that the only people who knew which senate district they lived in were those in the senate chamber (representatives probably also know since they are elected from the same legislative districts (2 representatives and 1 senator per legislative district). A senate committee amendment requires the petitions for each district to be on separate sheets. Signatures on the wrong sheet can not be counted. Someone who had circulated petitions suggested that you had three minutes to keep the attention of a potential signer, and if you were fumbling through maps and sheets of papers they would be gone. When collecting candidate signatures, you only have to check whether they lived in *your* district. Even if some out-of-district voters signed, you would simply not count them.
In South Dakota, they address the issue of voter understanding by requiring the circulator to hand each signer a sheet with the ballot title and the full text and other information. It does not appear that they have to read this before signing. Perhaps there is an explanation of how to withdraw a signature.
In the Senate there was a proposed amendment which would reduce the requirement to a majority of the 35 districts, which failed narrowly. Senators clearly understood what it would mean to get signatures in their district. Those from rural districts knew that nobody bothered coming to their districts. But at the same time, they saw that the bill would give veto power to every district.
Since this was ordinary legislation that was amended in Senate Committee, the House had to concur in the amendments, which they did on March 12. The governor will also have to sign the bill which I’m quite sure will happen.
True, true!