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Rapid City Finance Office Fouls Candidate Petitions: Every Sheet Must Have Two Sides!

In more evidence that we all need to know our petition law, Rapid City municipal candidates may have to throw out some signatures they’ve collected and start over, due to their city finance office’s forgetting that every petition sheet must have two sides:

The error is related to the petition form that was printed on two pages instead of front-to-back. Signatures collected on the second page may be invalid.

The Finance Office estimates that only 10 people received election packets with the incorrect petition pages. These prospective candidates are encouraged to bring any signatures already collected to the Finance Office for verification and pick up the correct forms [staff, “Prospective City Candidates Need New Election Petitions,” Rapid City Journal, 2016.03.05].

The technical rules requiring both pages—the front with the candidate’s declaration, the back with the circulator’s verification—to be printed front-to-back on a single sheet appear to be ARSD 05:02:08:00.02, which says a “section” is a single sheet, and ARSD 05:02:08:00, which a section must contain declaration and verification. Two separate sheets can’t be a section.

My blog can’t reach everybody. We need city finance officers, county auditors, and anyone else responsible for handing out petitions to know these rules and never harm any candidate or voter by sending a candidate with incorrect information and invalid petitions.

7 Comments

  1. PlanningStudent 2016-03-06 19:42

    I believe a City Hall should NOT be in business of giving out ‘candidate packets.’
    Maybe to actual candidates who have completed their petitions. That’s my stance as someone who works in city hall. If we verify petitions we shouldn’t be handing them out. I’m also leery of a finance officer acting as a notary on petitions because of the misunderstanding and confusion over what a notary is actually checking. At the SOS office we rejected petitions we helped candidates fill out. The candidate is still responsible for a correct petition and the finance officer and / or SOS still has to follow the law / admin. law…

  2. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-03-06 20:01

    Planning, I understand your hesitance. At the same time, who better to at least help get candidates started with their petitions than the election officials? Last March, Kea Warne was very helpful to me when I went in to the SOS office to take out the referendum petitions. Newcomers to the political process need a reliable guide to making their entry; the Secretary of State, county auditors, and city finance officers should be fully trained and ready to give that assistance without error.

  3. leslie 2016-03-06 21:16

    Delegation by unqualified officials is dangerous

  4. Les 2016-03-06 22:05

    Didn’t Gant remove Kea after his election. I’m sure Kea given the opportunity could take the confusion and ignorance out of the situation.

    Intent can be shown without two sides. What a crock of fermenting manure.

  5. grudznick 2016-03-06 22:36

    Jabba the Gant ran M.s Warne out of that town on a rail and replaced them all with a bunch of incompetent buffoons. Ms. Krebs has rehired a more competent group of workers. And we want workers who work hard and don’t just whine.

  6. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-03-07 06:19

    Kea Warne is definitely a qualified official. We should be able to have the same confidence in every county and city election official’s ability to give candidates the correct paperwork and information to run for office.

  7. Douglas Wiken 2016-03-07 15:47

    When the legislature creates laws or bureaucracies make regulations that require forms to be filed, the SOS should be provided example forms that indicate exactly what needs to be done. Otherwise, wretched legislation is just another goldmine for lawyers.

Comments are closed.