Amy Scott-Stoltz, president of the League of Women Voters, interviewed me last night to put together a helpful video for all South Dakotans who would like to volunteer to circulate initiative petitions this year. The League of Women Voters is using the video to prep volunteers carrying the new initiative petition for an independent redistricting commission sponsored by their anti-gerrymandering coalition, Drawn Together SD, but any South Dakotan carrying any ballot question petition may find this video helpful.
Amy Scott-Stoltz did offer one surprise question near the beginning of the video. I noted that the only* qualifications for circulating a petition are legal adulthood and 30 days of South Dakota residency. (See the definition of “petition circulator” in SDCL 2-1-1.3.) Scott-Stoltz asked, “You don’t even have to be a U.S. citizen…?”
No, you don’t.
That short answer makes me nervous… but the plain language of South Dakota statute does not mention “citizenship” as a requirement for engaging in the core political speech of petition circulation. The problematically vague definition of residency applied to petitioning and all other electoral matters (SDCL 12-1-4) refers only to where one lives and intends to remain. One has to be a citizen to vote, and one has to be a registered voter to sign a petition, but one doesn’t have to be a registered voter to circulate a petition, just a “resident” of South Dakota.
South Dakota is one of a handful of states that impose residency restrictions on petition circulators, largely to ban out-of-state circulators. Alaska explicitly includes citizenship as a criterion for petition circulators; Maine and North Dakota require circulators to be registered voters in the state. (Maine’s residency and voter-registration requirements just got knocked down in court as unacceptable burdens on core political speech… sound familiar?) South Dakota includes no such language… so I must conclude that non-citizens may circulate petitions in South Dakota.
Now I don’t recommend that ballot question committees rush to recruit non-citizens to carry their petitions. Even if the law seems clear, Governor Noem and Big Pharma and other anti-democratic forces would likely savor the chance to haul another initiative to court and accuse the sponsors of being foreign agents infiltrating our democracy. Those optics might not help a ballot question campaign… but as far as the law is concerned, if a new resident of this state just moved here from overseas and wants to participate in the initiative and referendum process that we pioneered, the state can’t stop them (and shouldn’t stop them! what better way to welcome newcomers to our state than to bolster their attachment to South Dakota through civic participation?).
* Another statute tucked away in a separate title (SDCL 12-1-32) says registered sex offenders can’t circulate petitions in public places or going door to door, but subsequent statutes make exceptions for registered sex offenders working under supervision in places where kids aren’t around (SDCL 12-1-33) and those circulating their own nominating petitions (SDCL 12-1-34).
This video is a great way to introduce people to circulating a petition. If I were Secretary of State, I’d develop a video that would show how to do this, and how not to do it. I’d put it on the Secretary of State website.
I know nothing about the current Sec. of State there. Maybe he’s alright, but does he stand up for the people’s constitutional rights of initiative and referendum? Alice Kundert and all the other SOS’s I had the privilege to know were very supportive of that right.
If someone were to run for that position I would suggust running as a Secretary of State for the People.
Donald, Secretary Steve Barnett does nothing of the sort. We’re I SOS, I’d be putting up exactly the kind of public service videos you are talking about. I would run for that office exactly as you suggest, telling voters that the SOS’s job is not just to count ballots but to help people participate in the process by all legal means available, and to go to the Legislature and advocate for ways to expand civic participation. The Secretary of State should be our Election Nerd in Chief, going to the Legislature and explaining vociferously how the Republican bills relating to initiative and referendum create undue and often unconstitutional burdens on civic participation.
You should run to be State Secretary, Mr. H. You could claim the title “Election Nerd” during the campaign. grudznick might even vote for you!
Maybe I missed it, but did someone mention this?: Don’t sign your own petition. Sign someone else’s
Good point, Cathy! Find a friend to circulate with you and swap signatures.
If you want to really get some good signings, let grudznick carry your paperwork. I’ll get it filled out in no time.