Secretary of State Shantel Krebs Certifies Second Ballot Measure
Today, Secretary of State Shantel Krebs announced that an Initiated Amendment to the South Dakota Constitution to Provide for State Legislative Redistricting by a Commission was validated and certified to be on the November 2016 general election ballot as a ballot measure that the citizens will vote on. The sponsor turned in 43,198 signatures to the Secretary of state’s office. An Initiated Amendment to the Constitution required a minimum of 27,741 signatures from South Dakota registered voters. Once the signatures were delivered to the Secretary of State’s office, a 5% random sampling was conducted. It was determined that 70.2% or 30,335 of 43,198 signatures were in good standing.
This is the second initiated measure to be approved by Secretary of State. A total of 8 measures were submitted for review. This office will continue the signature validation process of the remaining 6 measures in the order they were submitted to the Secretary of State. A total of 275,000 signatures were submitted among all petitions.
Those looking to challenge the Secretary of State’s certification of a ballot measure have 30 days from the date they are certified. To challenge the validation of to Provide for State Legislative Redistricting by a Commission that date would be January 25, 2016.
Challenges to all statewide initiatives and referendums must be brought within 30 days after the petition has been validated and filed by the Secretary of State (SDCL 12-1-13)
This measure needs to be DEFEATED SOUNDLY!
Why?
No seriously though, why would anyone vote against this? Why would anyone either side of the aisle be against a more representative democracy??
You might be correct if the proposed commission would truly be nonpartisan or even bipartisan, but anyone who objectively examines the proposed commission will see that it will be stacked with Democrats. This is another example, as is the case with their attempts to remove party identifications from the state legislative races and to create public funding of elections, of how Democrat leaders in SD are trying to find underhanded ways of overcoming the large Republican and conservative majorities in SD.
Those majorities have been guaranteed by the gerrymandering of districts by the republican majority. This was done to insure that no democrat could possibly be elected to the legislature. The redistricting in Rapid City comes to mind because it was done to make sure that neither Viken nor Olson would never be re-elected. If you believe otherwise you are living in an alternate universe.