Pot promoters claiming 32k signatures collected, including those after out-of-state assistance came in. Still a long road, but lots of money pouring in.

Pat Powers

The pot legalization group “New Approach South Dakota” is claiming that they have collected the signatures to put their measure to the ballot:

Before we tell you what we have, we want to remind you all The work is NOT done. We are still circulating all the way up to the Rally at the Capitol on November 4th. Volunteers still have petitions, our business hosts still have petitions and we are still vending at events the next few weeks. You can still sign. We WANT you to sign still. We want every SD resident who supports medical access to sign the petition.

Today though we want you all to take a moment and take this in. We currently have 32,203 signatures in hand.

Read that here.

That being said, it seems that the explosion in signature collection isn’t from initial efforts, but has come mainly from the out-of-state petition group Fieldworks who was brought in by an outside group under a slightly separate banner to collect signatures.

Claiming 32k signatures in hand, it provides a significant cushion for the group. But…. it remains to be seen how the accuracy rate will come out as from the Secretary of State’s sampling.  Previously, New Approach had poor signature collection accuracy on a percentage basis, but even at their previous 62%, they might have enough of a cushion to survive the certification process. If they pass that, then the petition could face a challenge in court.

Any court challenge would mostly depend on a group with deeper pockets with the ability to fund the fight stepping up to the plate.  Surviving challenges to the petition itself, the measure would then face voters in a state that has not been interested in legalizing pot for medical purposes in the past.

Given the amount of cash pouring into the state to get it on the ballot, I don’t suspect the out-of-state promoters will abandon the fight, even as poorly written as the measure has been drafted.

This might be the only measure on the ballot this year, so anticipate you’re going to be hearing about legalizing pot for some time to come.

Stay tuned.

35 thoughts on “Pot promoters claiming 32k signatures collected, including those after out-of-state assistance came in. Still a long road, but lots of money pouring in.”

  1. When confronted initially years before didn’t Mentele claim she would never bring out of state marijuana industry money and help into South Dakota and it would all be sourced within South Dakota?

    1. You can also blame Brendon Johnson

      He is still trying to push a constitutional amendment to legalize pot and none of the money people showed up until he showed up pushing this stuff

  2. Where can we donate or help fight this crap?

    If you read the bill it isA Trojan horse for recreational bill

  4. $20 says the SDSOS will throw this thing right into the dumpster. All cannabis industry growth in the state should happen in South Dakota’s Indian Country.

  5. Curious – how would the petition be challenged in Court if certified by the Secretary of State?

  6. “That being said, it seems that the explosion in signature collection isn’t from initial efforts, but has come mainly from the out-of-state petition group Fieldworks who was brought in by an outside group under a slightly separate banner to collect signatures.”

    Do you have anything to back up that statement? What was the count prior to the out of state helpers? If the boost happened after that, can you provide anything to back that claim up?

  7. All you socialists denying the people the opportunity to choose for themselves. Let the people vote.

  8. It is hard to understand why our Governor is so paranoid about hemp and how it will lead to a ‘recreational’ bill but no mention from her administration about any concerns on vaping. Is it their lack of education?

    1. The Government would lose out of receiving millions of dollars from their welfare queen provider.

  9. How many people were lied to in order to get them to sign? I thought all people colecting signatures were supposed to be South Dakotans.

    1. Curious how many people caught their lies and snake oil claims on video. Petitions could be thrown out.

      1. The several petitioners I encountered, in SF, were from SoDak and though I didn’t sign, they answered my questions thoroughly. They weren’t “aggressive”, they were polite and moved on after I said no.

        2. The ones I ran into looked like when this is done they will go back to pan handling, were obviously impaired and stunk like skunk.

          1. Guess they didn’t smell bad enough to run people off, you did notice how many signatures they currently have?

            1. The compassion @7:01 shares with us is riveting. I can only imagine the volunteer hours they have helping our homeless vets and others in need.

  10. Springer is right, there will be dishonesty on both sides of this campaign. But the most egregious lies will be from the prohibitionists, guaranteed.

    Dishonest is almost all they got.

  11. Giving South Dakota’s Indian Country a head start in this growing industry brokered by Governor Noem and Tribal Secretary Dave Flute is quite a coup on the road to reconciliation.

    1. The Tribes love socialism so leave them alone. Nothing will change until the people rise up.

  12. Legal pot will keep our young people from moving out of the state.

    If they have pot they won’t even move out of their parents’ basements.

      2. False! They are vaping or were with high potency THC cartridges. It was an epidemic until these deaths and illnesses happened.

          1. Who knows. It scared the heck out of many users going back to whatever they were smoking before or they could still be Vaping will to risk it all to satisfy that insatiable craving to get high.

  13. Legalizing will help to keep entrepreneurs and young people in SD. To many are moving to Colorado and Minnesota.

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