Draft Amendment Would Prevent Delaying Primary for Coronavirus

Evidently someone in Pierre wants no disruption of the primary or any other electoral delays past June 1. The Legislature’s roster of twelve emergency bills for today’s amazing and historic online Veto-Plus Day includes now an amendment to Draft 935, the proposal to delay elections in case of coronavirus.

Obviously rejecting my advice to expand the provisions of this measure to give South Dakotans more chance to practice democracy in this plague year, Amendment 935A would take Draft 935 in the opposite direction:

1. While it adds the last week of May to the period during which local governments can delay their scheduled spring elections, Amendment 935A drops the option to hold the make-up election on any Tuesday in June and requires that all postponed local elections take place on Primary Day, June 2.
2. The amendment strikes the proposed option for the Governor to delay the primary if public health concerns persist until as late as July 28. The amendment means the primary would happen June 2, no matter what.
3. The amendment moves up the expiration date of this measure from December 31 to July 1 of this year.

New York has already postponed its primary from April 28 to June 23. Louisiana postponed its April 4 primary to June 20. Both are past the Democratic National Committee’s deadline of June 9 for Presidential primaries, but why should any one political party dictate election or public health policy?

We don’t know how much distance we’ll have to keep from each other in June. Governor Kristi Noem’s favorite President thought we’d all be back to clubbing at Maralago by Easter, but yesterday he conceded that we have to stick with social distancing at least through the end of April. To minimize the risk to voters and election workers, we should at least give the Governor the authority that other governors have exercised to delay the primary if the coronavirus persists longer than this amendment apparently hopes. Drop Amendment 935A and take this election proposal the other direction, to allow more longer and more flexible election calendar adjustments to accommodate a public health crisis that, under the best case scenario, remains hot for two to three months.