Last updated on 2015-12-24
With one initiative petition certified and seven more pending, interested citizens may be wondering about the viability of challenging any of these petitions.
The first consideration is how close the submitted signature count is to the minimum count necessary to qualify for the ballot. In 2008, 2010, and 2014 (believe it or not, prior Secretary of State Jason Gant appears not to have kept the petition records for 2012 on file), the average percentage of invalid signatures on ballot measure petitions was 24.76%. The average invalid rate on the two referenda submitted this summer was 17.71%. The invalid rate on the Glodt Amendment certified Monday was 35.87%. The only recent petition with a higher invalid rate was the 2010 medical marijuana petition, on which 40.51% of all signatures were bogus.
Based on the Secretary’s calculated number of signatures (which in most cases is higher than the circulators’ own count), three petitions have a smaller proportion of extra signatures than the Glodt Amendment error rate:
- Amendment T: Redistricting
- Initiated Measure 21: real 36% payday loan rate cap
- Initiated measure 24: Medical marijuana
But to challenge those petitions, citizens must obtain a copy of the petition in order to review the signatures. SDCL 1-8-10 requires that the Secretary of State charge one dollar per page to make a copy of any document on file in her office. Four petitions—Glodt, 36%, Anti-Corruption, and medical marijuana—have signatures on just one side, thus costing just $1 per sheet to get copies of all signatures. The other four—redistricting, fake 18%, non-partisan primary, and fair-share—have signatures on two sides, thus costing $2 per sheet. (Note to petitioners wanting to deter casual challenges: always format your sheet to have signature blanks on both sides!)
Secretary Krebs provides the following sheet count, which allows us to calculate the cost of getting copies of each petition. The Secretary is still numbering the fake 18% petition sheets, so I have estimated that sheet count based on the signatures per sheet on the Glodt petition, whose circulators also carried the fake 18% petition. (I include this summer’s referendum petitions for comparison and to acknowledge the fact that challengers could still take those petitions to court.)
| Assigned Number/Letter (assuming all submitted petitions are certified) | Number of Petition Sheets Submitted | Calculated Number of Signatures Submitted | Number of Signatures Needed | Submitted Cushion | Allowable Error | Copy Cost |
| Referred Law 19 | 998 | 16,819 | 13,871 | 2,948 | 17.53% | $1,996 |
| Referred Law 20 | 1,219 | 21,277 | 13,871 | 7,406 | 34.81% | $2,438 |
| Amendment S: Glodt on crime victims | 6,341 | 53,687 | 27,741 | 25,946 | 48.33% | $6,341 |
| Amend T: Redistricting | 2,841 | 43,198 | 27,741 | 15,457 | 35.78% | $5,682 |
| Initiated Measure 21: Real 36% payday loan rate cap | 1,786 | 19,936 | 13,871 | 6,065 | 30.42% | $1,786 |
| Amend Usury: Fake 18% rate cap | 4,753* | 60,028 | 27,741 | 32,287 | 53.79% | $9,506* |
| IM 22: Anti-Corruption Act | 1,672 | 24,532 | 13,871 | 10,661 | 43.46% | $1,672 |
| Amend V: Non-partisan primary | 2,710 | 44,095 | 27,741 | 16,354 | 37.09% | $5,420 |
| IM 23: Fair share union dues | 1,824 | 30,810 | 13,871 | 16,939 | 54.98% | $3,648 |
| IM 24: Medical marijuana | 998 | 16,543 | 13,871 | 2,672 | 16.15% | $998 |
Add the cost of obtaining the statewide voter registration list ($2,500 for an electronic copy, $5,500 for print… but please, why would any rational petition challenger spend $3,000 more for a less useful hard copy?), and just obtaining the basic information necessary for a petition challenge will cost between $3,498 and $12,006*. Labor costs—let’s be optimistic and assume it takes 30 seconds to record and check each signature—at the same $15-per-hour going rate of circulators could add between $2,000 to $7,500.
I thus figure that the easiest challenge, medical marijuana, would cost about $5,500 in documents and labor. The hardest challenge, the fake 18% petition, would cost nearly $20,000… and that’s before anyone lawyers up.
Practically speaking, only the medical marijuana signature count appears to be within the historical range for a viable challenge. But given the above-average error rate produced by the “professional” circulators of the Glodt Amendment as well as the illegal tactics that characterized their shady campaign, the other petitions those “professionals” touched may be more prone to rigorous scrutiny.
State law gives citizens 30 days from certification date to file a challenge a ballot measure petition with the Secretary of State. That challenge must include “an itemized listing of the specific deficiencies” that disqualify signatures. After that, citizens may challenge petitions in circuit court. Court challenges must be completed before the Secretary prints the general election ballot in late August or early September.
*Update 2015.12.24 16:14 CST: The original data the Secretary of State provided to me did not include a sheet count for the fake 18% petition. I thus estimated page count based on the percentage of blanks filled on the Glodt petition. The SOS provided a final sheet count for the fak
privatize. bring in a rented mobile copy machine and reams of paper, make your own copies in a day or two in secure lobby setting maintaining “chain of evidence” of custody of official documents (unlike joop!). copier might have to be assistant of an “officer of the court”.
no SOS “services performed”. electricity not included.
analyze and file timely challenge. put burden on petition defender who likely already kept a complete copy of submission to question your challenge. monitor SOS delay on its effect of timeliness of court challenge.
Bring your own scanner… also known as a phone-camera?
Sounds like a profitable rip-off if they can work it. Bringing your own scanner will prolly be looked upon as an invasion of workplace privacy and not allowed. Mayhaps a hidden camera and then you can edit the videos ala Breitbart/O’keefe to push your point of view. Unfortunately,Master wouldn’t stoop that low and he will still prolly be accused of it anyway.
Oh, I checked, Mike: no need for a hidden camera! I can bring my own camera or scanner.
It’s unfair to say that signatures are bogus because they weren’t confirmed valid, and all of your claims about how citizens can file and challenge against the validity of such signatures are only half the story — because citizens have every right to challenge the findings of the SOS as well. There are many scenarios where signatures are found “invalid” but state law doesn’t dictate one way or the other. What if William signs as Bill? What if someone signs with a maiden name? or what if someone has a conjoined last name like Debbie Wesserman Schultz but she only signs with Debbie Schultz? What about younger voters or college students who are registered, but are unsure of which address to list, the one at home or the one on campus? There are so many scenarios that invalidate signatures or put a signature into question I think it’s unfair for you to say that “40.51% of all signatures were bogus”, because they weren’t bogus, they were just questionable according to the discretion of the SOS and his/her staff at that time. According to my discussions with then Secretary Nelson our validity rate on the 2010 medical marijuana petition was much higher than what you are reporting now. In many cases, a signature is invalid because of the signer themselves, and some other cases, it’s a result of a lazy circulator, but more often than not, it’s the fault of the signer not knowing his/her address on file (and in the case of medical marijuana, attracting signatures from many younger and poorer voters who much less likely to maintain a stable address, you will find a higher rate of signatures without correct addresses matching the voter file), and in some cases, yes in some cases, it will even be the fault of the County staff misreporting voter info.
So- to say “bogus” implies that signatures are fraudulent or fake, and that is simply not true. You know as well as anybody how tedious the signature gathering process is. It’s unfair to imply that petition backers themselves are frauding signatures when in reality it’s a matter of voters not knowing what information to list.
Your complaint sounds like a linguistic tempest in a teapot, Emmett. Bogus is bogus. They don’t count.