Release: South Dakota GOP Launches “Don’t Sign on the Line” effort to encourage voters to educate themselves on ballot measures before they agree to them.

South Dakota GOP Launches “Don’t Sign on the Line” effort to encourage voters to educate themselves on ballot measures before they agree to them.

With South Dakota’s ballot continually being used as a mad scientist’s laboratory, the South Dakota Republican Party’s governing body, the State Republican Party’s Central Committee, adopted the position at a recent meeting that voters should fully educate themselves before committing to sign a petition for any ballot measure.

As a result, South Dakota GOP Chairman Dan Lederman launched the party’s education effort titled “Don’t sign on the Line” on social media this week.

Chairman Dan Lederman noted that “the effort is about educating voters to make sure they understand what they’re signing.  All too often, out-of-state organizations have thrown millions of dollars into signature collection, bringing in hired guns from out of state to circulate petitions who never establish an actual residency here, despite the requirements of the law.”

“The initiative and referendum process was established in South Dakota to allow a government that’s more responsive to its citizens,” Lederman said. “Not for whatever D.C. or California special interest group who could write the biggest check and send in armies for a slick, street-corner sell.”

The State Republican party is encouraging every South Dakotan who is approached by a ballot measure petition carrier, DON’T SIGN ON THE LINE, and that South Dakota voters can take a day, and hold off on signing until they have a chance to both research the measure, as well as to verify that the petition carrier can produce South Dakota identification.

“Only if they’re satisfied that its a measure that makes South Dakota better, and it’s a fellow South Dakotan making the ask, should they consider signing,” Lederman said.

13 thoughts on “Release: South Dakota GOP Launches “Don’t Sign on the Line” effort to encourage voters to educate themselves on ballot measures before they agree to them.”

  1. I sign ’em all. I’ll vote when it’s time. Sounds really anti-democracy to me. Besides, the legislature will attempt to quash anything they don’t like, right?

    1. I vote with my refusing to sign as much as you vote if it gets on the ballot. I think I’m exercising my right as a citizen of the state by NOT signing petitions for things with which I do not agree, and I don’t think that urging people to not sign something in the hopes of preventing it from getting on the ballot is anti-democracy. The “let anything and everything on the ballot” mentality as being the pro-democracy stance is twisted “logic”.

  2. I don’t sign anything, regardless of where the petitioner is from. There is no way to know what the ramifications will be of said law just from reading a short synopsis of the measure by the AG. There is no way a short synopsis can fully explain a ballot measure that is many, many pages long. And most of the petitioners collecting signatures probably don’t know or care what they are collecting for, just as long as they are getting paid.

    Anti-democracy? No. The legislature should really address this issue this session. Make the petitioners collect signatures from each legislative district proportionately. And maybe increase the number of signatures required. That way if the measure is truly of importance to South Dakotans and merits the hard work and time to get it on the ballot, it will not have any trouble getting signatures. BUT, if it is some measure being pushed by out of state interests, it will be harder to get done and hopefully will discourage these measures.

    Don’t sign anything and VNOE!

    1. So let’s not even have the discussion? Not signing is the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying, “LALALALALALAICANTHEARYOULALALALALALA”

      Read it, sign it, and let the people have their say.

      1. I agree with Springer; if you don’t know what the petition is actually promoting or you know it is contrary to your opinion, don’t sign it. Ike’s claim that you have to sign and let any piece of claptrap onto the ballot is lunacy.

        How many people truly knew the substance of IM 22? I would guess very few people read all 30+ pages, so, therefore, they voted uninformed.

        Again, by choosing to NOT sign, you are voting your choice as much as voting or not voting for something on the ballot, despite Ike’s brilliant analysis.

  3. This is a silly effort. Every one of these ballot measures is going to be on the ballot. Every single one.

    1. Yes including the ones the people just rejected…the Democrats want to say look at th will of the people on IM 22 but T &V were defeated and they are bringing those right back….

      Don’t sign! we don’t need a small book at the ballot with all these LIBERAL ballot measures on it!

    2. So somebody standing up for what they believe in NOT signing is silly? Let’s all cave in to this attitude and just accept that everything will get on the ballot.

      I say that they need to raise the bar on getting something on the ballot. Ooooohhhh, is that anti-democracy?

  4. Most of the problems with the initiated measures and constitutional amendments would be solved if it were against the law to pay the people to distribute the petitions and collect the signatures. If an idea had viable support among a significant number of South Dakotans, then getting volunteers to collect the signatures would not be a problem.

    1. Amen! I collected signatures to get a vote on a local issue because it was something I truly believed in. No one collecting those signatures was paid. Again, make the signatories to these petitions be a proportionate number of signatures from each separate legislative district or county in the state. And make it illegal to pay them. That would go a long way to separate the wheat from the chaff (crap). If it’s a good idea, people will be glad to collect signatures on their own.

  5. Just watched a totally awesome episode of Law and Order Special Victims Unit; it was about a serial rapist who was a petition circulator. He circulated petitions that would interest women, about women’s reproductive rights, banning puppy mills, and funding for the arts, and put stars next to the signatures that interested him.
    And then, using the addresses they had provided, he broke into their homes and raped them.

    I thought it was a great story line. Everybody should see it.

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