The 8th circuit will hear oral arguments in Constitution Party of South Dakota v Nelson, 10-2910, on March 15 in Minneapolis, at 9 a.m. This is the case that challenges a South Dakota law that prohibits out-of-state circulators for candidate petitions, and also for initiative petitions. Oddly, the law does not prohibit out-of-state circulators to work on a petition to qualify a new party.
The lawsuit was filed in 2010. The Constitution Party was already ballot-qualified. But it needed experienced petitioners to complete the petition to get its gubernatorial candidate on its own primary ballot. The law required the candidate to get 250 signatures, and only registered party members could sign. The party only had about 320 registered members in the state. It is obviously extremely difficult to get the signatures of 250 people when there are only 320 eligible signers, especially in a state as physically large as South Dakota. Yet the state did not permit the party to hire out-of-state circulators, even though it would have been legal for out-of-state circulators to work on the petition to put the party on the ballot. As a result, the party couldn’t place its own gubernatorial nominee on its own primary ballot, and therefore it had no candidate on the November ballot. And because South Dakota requires a party to poll 2.5% for Governor, the party went off the ballot.
