Jackley Breaks Krebs’s Random-Sample Table; Rule Fix Needed!

Last updated on 2018-04-09

Marty Jackley broke the petition-sampling table, so Shantel Krebs had to order a new one!

Last Monday, our aspiringly gubernatorial Attorney General submitted his nominating petition. As a show of organizational force, Jackley submitted 8,264 signatures, 4.2 times the 1,955 Republicans need to run for statewide office. (Democrat Billie Sutton submitted 2,422 signatures, 3.4 times the 706 required of Democrats. Kristi Noem appears not to have tried making hay out of her signature count.)

As I reported last week, Jackley’s showing off created a problem for the Secretary of State’s office. For the first time, thanks to a new law passed in 2017, the Secretary of State certified statewide candidate petitions by using statistically rigorous random sampling rather than by counting and verifying all of signatures required. Statute directs that the Secretary sample “a number of signatures that is statistically correlative to not less than ninety-five percent level of confidence with a margin of error equal to not more than three and sixty-two one-hundredths percent” (SDCL 12-1-36; identical language is applied to ballot question petitions in SDCL 2-1-16). To avoid having to do math, Secretary of State Shantel Krebs recruited Northern State University statistician Sara Schmidt to run the numbers and make a table telling how many signatures to sample for various size petitions. The Board of Elections approved that table and wrote it into Administrative Rule 05:02:08:00.05.

Alas, the table only went from 250 signatures to 5,000, because, really, what knucklehead would submit more than 5,000 signatures when he only needs 1,955 (or, if he were an independent, 2,775)?

…best-laid plans…

But Secretary Krebs didn’t let that lack of foresight hold her down. She called statistician Schmidt and ordered a new table to cover sample sizes from 5,000 up to 20,000:

Sample Size	Signatures Submitted	“Safe Harbor” Sample Size	Sample Size % of Total
639	5,000	641	12.7800%
641	5,100	642	12.5686%
642	5,200	644	12.3462%
644	5,300	645	12.1509%
645	5,400	647	11.9444%
647	5,500	648	11.7636%
648	5,600	649	11.5714%
649	5,700	651	11.3860%
651	5,800	652	11.2241%
652	5,900	653	11.0508%
653	6,000	654	10.8833%
654	6,100	656	10.7213%
656	6,200	657	10.5806%
657	6,300	658	10.4286%
658	6,400	659	10.2813%
659	6,500	660	10.1385%
660	6,600	661	10.0000%
661	6,700	662	9.8657%
662	6,800	663	9.7353%
663	6,900	664	9.6087%
664	7,000	664	9.4857%
664	7,100	665	9.3521%
665	7,200	666	9.2361%
666	7,300	667	9.1233%
667	7,400	668	9.0135%
668	7,500	669	8.9067%
669	7,600	669	8.8026%
669	7,700	670	8.6883%
670	7,800	671	8.5897%
671	7,900	671	8.4937%
671	8,000	672	8.3875%
672	8,100	673	8.2963%
673	8,200	673	8.2073%
673	8,300	674	8.1084%
674	8,400	675	8.0238%
675	8,500	675	7.9412%
675	8,600	676	7.8488%
676	8,700	677	7.7701%
677	8,800	677	7.6932%
677	8,900	678	7.6067%
678	9,000	678	7.5333%
678	9,100	679	7.4505%
679	9,200	679	7.3804%
679	9,300	680	7.3011%
680	9,400	680	7.2340%
680	9,500	681	7.1579%
681	9,600	681	7.0938%
681	9,700	682	7.0206%
682	9,800	682	6.9592%
682	9,900	683	6.8889%
683	10,000	683	6.8300%
683	10,100	684	6.7624%
684	10,200	684	6.7059%
684	10,300	685	6.6408%
685	10,400	685	6.5865%
685	10,500	686	6.5238%
686	10,600	686	6.4717%
686	10,700	686	6.4112%
686	10,800	687	6.3519%
687	10,900	687	6.3028%
687	11,000	688	6.2455%
688	11,100	688	6.1982%
688	11,200	688	6.1429%
688	11,300	689	6.0885%
689	11,400	689	6.0439%
689	11,500	689	5.9913%
689	11,600	690	5.9397%
690	11,700	690	5.8974%
690	11,800	690	5.8475%
690	11,900	691	5.7983%
691	12,000	691	5.7583%
691	12,100	691	5.7107%
691	12,200	692	5.6639%
692	12,300	692	5.6260%
692	12,400	692	5.5806%
692	12,500	693	5.5360%
693	12,600	693	5.5000%
693	12,700	693	5.4567%
693	12,800	694	5.4141%
694	12,900	694	5.3798%
694	13,000	694	5.3385%
694	13,100	694	5.2977%
694	13,200	695	5.2576%
695	13,300	695	5.2256%
695	13,400	695	5.1866%
695	13,500	695	5.1481%
695	13,600	696	5.1103%
696	13,700	696	5.0803%
696	13,800	696	5.0435%
696	13,900	696	5.0072%
696	14,000	697	4.9714%
697	14,100	697	4.9433%
697	14,200	697	4.9085%
697	14,300	697	4.8741%
697	14,400	698	4.8403%
698	14,500	698	4.8138%
698	14,600	698	4.7808%
698	14,700	698	4.7483%
698	14,800	699	4.7162%
699	14,900	699	4.6913%
699	15,000	699	4.6600%
699	15,100	699	4.6291%
699	15,200	699	4.5987%
699	15,300	700	4.5686%
700	15,400	700	4.5455%
700	15,500	700	4.5161%
700	15,600	700	4.4872%
700	15,700	700	4.4586%
700	15,800	701	4.4304%
701	15,900	701	4.4088%
701	16,000	701	4.3813%
701	16,100	701	4.3540%
701	16,200	701	4.3272%
701	16,300	702	4.3006%
702	16,400	702	4.2805%
702	16,500	702	4.2545%
702	16,600	702	4.2289%
702	16,700	702	4.2036%
702	16,800	702	4.1786%
702	16,900	703	4.1538%
703	17,000	703	4.1353%
703	17,100	703	4.1111%
703	17,200	703	4.0872%
703	17,300	703	4.0636%
703	17,400	703	4.0402%
703	17,500	704	4.0171%
704	17,600	704	4.0000%
704	17,700	704	3.9774%
704	17,800	704	3.9551%
704	17,900	704	3.9330%
704	18,000	704	3.9111%
704	18,100	705	3.8895%
705	18,200	705	3.8736%
705	18,300	705	3.8525%
705	18,400	705	3.8315%
705	18,500	705	3.8108%
705	18,600	705	3.7903%
705	18,700	705	3.7701%
705	18,800	706	3.7500%
706	18,900	706	3.7354%
706	19,000	706	3.7158%
706	19,100	706	3.6963%
706	19,200	706	3.6771%
706	19,300	706	3.6580%
706	19,400	706	3.6392%
706	19,500	707	3.6205%
707	19,600	707	3.6071%
707	19,700	707	3.5888%
707	19,800	707	3.5707%
707	19,900	707	3.5528%
707	20,000	707	3.5350%

Attentive election nerds will notice that the “safe harbor” figures for signatures from 14,000 to 20,000 differ slightly from those listed in ARSD 05:02:08:00.05 for ballot question petitions. This difference likely arises because the existing ballot question signature table has increments of 1,000 while this ad hoc nominating petition table steps up by 100. Finer granularity means smaller safe-harbor round-ups.

But those increments expose a flaw in the wording of the existing rule. Read Part 8(b):

If the number of submitted signatures is between two numbers listed in the signatures submitted column, the Secretary of State shall round down to the lower number if the number is 500 or less and shall round up if the number is 501 and higher [ARSD 0:02:08:00.05, Part 8(b)].

This awkwardly written rule directs the Secretary to select a row on the table by rounding signatures to the nearest thousand. But both the existing nominating petition table and the above ad hoc table step up by 100. Rounding Jackley’s 8,264 to the nearest thousand would have meant sampling 762 signatures; rounding to the nearest hundred would have called for sampling 764. (My straight calculation from the formula, with no safe harbor, says the sample size should be 673.)

Now Marty’s primary challenger Kristi Noem could challenge Jackley’s petition (Krebs certified Jackley’s petition last week Monday, and statute gives five business days to challenge a nominating petition, so today’s the deadline for an in-office, non-court challenge) by saying that the Secretary certified the petition outside of existing rules. Such a challenge would likely fail: statute clearly tells the Secretary of State how to randomly sample any statewide petition; the failure of rule to translate that directive into practical spreadsheet guidance for every situation doesn’t prevent or invalidate the Secretary’s action in an extreme case.

But for the sake of completeness, the Board of Elections should add the above table to the rules. We should also rewrite Part 8(b) into four parts, the first to cover ballot question petitions, the second to cover nominating petitions, and the third and fourth to cover petitions exceeding the tabulated sizes:

(b) If the number of submitted signatures on a ballot question petition is between two numbers listed in the signatures submitted column on the statewide ballot question table, the Secretary of State shall round the number of submitted signatures to the nearest thousand.

(c) If the number of submitted signatures on a statewide candidate petition is between two numbers listed in the signatures submitted column on the statewide candidate table, the Secretary of State shall round the number of submitted signatures to the nearest hundred.

(d) If the number of submitted signatures on a statewide candidate petition exceeds the maximum number of signatures listed in the statewide candidate table, the Secretary of State shall apply the sampling table and rules for statewide ballot question petitions.

(e) If the number of submitted signatures on any statewide petition exceeds the maximum number of signatures listed in the statewide ballot question table, the Secretary apply the statistical formula specified in statute to determine the size of the random sample.

Amending the table and the rule discrepancy will go unnoticed by 99.99% of South Dakotans. It will have zero impact on who makes the ballot. But rules are rules, and they should be complete and correct. Bulk up that table and tighten those screws, in case Marty comes crashing in again with some extra-large petition!