SB 33: Slightly More Rational Signature Requirements for Candidate Petitions, But No Reform for Ballot Questions

If we can amend it to avoid another First Amendment violation and court injunction, Senate Bill 33 promises to make signature requirements for candidate petitions a little more rational.

SB 33 formalizes Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s proposal to make petition signatures for everything but ballot questions depend on the number of voters registered on the second Tuesday of December before the election instead of the number of voters who cast ballots in the last gubernatorial election. SB 33 has no emergency clause, so it would not affect the number of signatures candidates have to collect to make the 2026 ballot (and thank goodness, because petitioning has already begun, and changing signature requirements midstream would be impractical and unfair.)

SB 33 requires partisan candidates to collect signatures equal to 1% of the voters registered in that candidate’s party as of the second Tuesday of December; however, SB 33 caps signatures at 2,250 for statewide office and 50 for county, Legislature, and other smaller jurisdictions.

Just like current law, SB 33 sets a higher bar for independent candidates. Indies would have to collect signatures equaling 0.5% of all registered voters, but not more than 3,500.

The Secretary of State doesn’t yet publish voter counts for the second Tuesday of December, but totals from December to January appear not to have changed enough to affect SB 33’s thresholds. Based on the published count from the first Monday of December 2025, here’s how SB 33 would change petitions for statewide candidates:

Statewide	2026	SB 33
Democratic	1,232	1,407
Republican	2,171	2,250
Libertarian	741	29
Independent	3,502	3,110
New Party Formation	3,502	3,500

Democrats running for Governor or Congress will need to collect around 175 more signatures; their Republican opponents will have to collect about 80 more. Libertarians get a huge break, needing only about 30 signatures instead of the 741 based on the exceptional turnout for their Congressional candidate in 2022, who was the only opponent to the Republican winner and thus won much of the anti-incumbent support that likely would have gone to a Democrat, had one run. SB 33 lowers the independent signature count by around 390.

The total number of registered voters has grown by 1.93% each year since 2022. At that rate of growth, SB 33’s 3,500 signature cap would kick in for independents by the 2034 election.

I’ve also included the petition signature requirement for forming a new political party. SB 33 sets the new-party signature threshold at 1% of the total voter count, not the 0.5% independents get, but mercifully sets the same maximum at 3,500, almost the same as the current requirement of 3,502. With current total voter registration at 622,040, 1% of which would be 6,221, the new party signature threshold will remain at the cap of 3,500 forever… unless some massive demographic shift occurs (widespread citizen disengagement, exodus to Minnesota, pandemic with 50% lethality…).

According to calculations I did when the Secretary posted her policy proposals in November, candidates for Legislature won’t see much change. Democrats and Republicans running for county commissions will need to collect more signatures.

SB 33 gets rid of the complicated formula in SDCL 12-6-7 that the Secretary and auditors have to use to figure signature thresholds in counties that use vote centers and don’t have counts of voters by party in each precinct.

SB 33 is a step toward more rational petition signature requirements. Tying signature thresholds to the number of voters registered the month before petitioning reflects the actual state of the electorate and signatures available than candidate voter counts more than three years ago. SB 33 creates the minor problem of leaving candidates in the dark about the exact number of signatures they’ll need until the Secretary publishes the December second Tuesday tallies the month before petitions launch, but as I noted above, but from December 2024 to December 2025, the signatures required under SB 33 for statewide candidates would have increased by 1 for Republicans and independents, decreased by 1 for Libertarians, and decreased by 55 for Democrats, so the uncertainty in planning the petition drive is minimal.

My major objection to SB 33, on both philosophical and practical grounds, is that it treats candidate petitions and ballot question petitions differently. SB 33 does not mention initiative and referendum petitions. If passed, SB 33 would leave ballot question petitions tied to voter turnout at the last gubernatorial election. It is philosophically inconsistent to tie one kind of petition to current voter tallies and another to voter turnout in a previous election. It is also inconsistent to set caps on signature requirements for one kind of petition, declaring in this case that candidate petitions need not forever be proportional to the size of the electorate, but not impose signature caps for another kind of petition. SB 33 leaves ballot question petitioners facing ever-growing signature thresholds, while candidates may eventually engage decreasing percentages of the electorate to get on the ballot. It also seems impractical and confusing to create two different formulas that the Secretary and local election officials must use to figure the signatures petitioners have to gather, depending on whether they are circulating petitions for candidates or ballot questions.

If it makes sense to ditch turnout at the last gubernatorial election as a basis for candidate petition requirements, then it makes sense to do the same for ballot question petitions. Let’s amend SB 33 to include ballot question petitions and set thresholds and caps tuned to current requirements:

• Initiated measures and referred laws: 2.5% of voters registered before petition season begins (that would have to be October two years before the general election!) but no more than 18,000 (based on the current requirement of 17,508).
• Constitutional amendments: 5.0% of voters registered before petition season begins but no more than 36,000 (based on the current requirement of 35,017)

Note that I’m being generous and proposing thresholds in line with the changes SB 33 makes for candidates instead of asking for special favors for my favorite part of the electoral process. But Legislature, if you’d like to set the percentages and caps for ballot question signatures even lower, I’m entirely open too your suggestions.

But we should not reform petition requirements for candidates without making similar reforms for ballot questions. Make SB 33 comprehensive!