I am just as shocked as you. Even by the fact that it failed in all but 1 county in South Dakota. Even when you talk to the folks that were in opposition, they seemed skeptical that it would fail.
There were a lot of factors;
• The Vote NO campaign did an amazing job of getting the simple message out that this would destroy initiatives in the future. It was well funded and well organized.
• There was an amazing grassroots effort to get out Dems and Indys to vote against this.
• Many Republicans opposed the measure and spoke out.
• The Chamber and the 3 major hospitals opposed it.
But the main reason I think it failed is people in South Dakota, no matter your political affiliation, like our initiative process. I think while the process is long and messy I think South Dakotans are very proud of direct democracy and when they can’t trust our elected officials, we have options.
Ironically the pro Amendment C people in the legislature who said this was about taxes (hogwash) have failed to reduce our taxes. Several bills failed this winter that would reduce sales taxes. If this was really about low taxes, when is the legislature going to lower our taxes?
I also think this is a good sign that Rec MJ and Medicade expansion will pass in November.
I also was NOT amused by this thread on Reddit. Apparently poll workers were yelling out if you were an evil Democrat when checking in for voting. Wrong ballots handed out and I guess the Minnehaha County Auditor Kyte is apparently trained poll workers to not have the public sign the poll books. This makes signature matching impossible. Good thing the guy lost. The County Commission should tell him to resign before the General Election, he is clearly not cut out for the job.
As a Democratic voter, they called out loud for me to get a “non-party ballot”. I protested and said it should be a Democratic ballot. They claimed that if you were not a registered Republican you were getting a “non-party ballot” in a primary which only exists because of partisan identities. #GoFigure
Perhaps, it made it easier for the vote counters to have one and not two ballots with only Amendment C on it for those legislative districts which the Dems did not have an actual primary contest, but frankly “non-party” to identify Democrats sounds offense and intentional to me.
Come to think of it, since primaries are partisan elections and Independents can only vote in Democratic and not Republican primary contests in South Dakota, and that’s a party choice I might add, was it even legal to have a non partisan contest or vote in a primary election?
( and Woodstock adds: “Well, it might all be legal because it might be a part of the state constitution which is allowed to overrule the other part of the state constitution”… (… “Wow, I’ve heard of canon law, but not cannibal law”… ))
Are the Dems running anyone decent (i.e. – with a snowball’s chance) in the Auditor’s race?
The woman who beat Kyte is a card-carrying, stop the steal, Trumpublican.
What blows my mind is if you pulled out every single Democrat and independent voter from the election – assuming that every single last one of them voted NO – Amendment C STILL lost.
It didn’t even get 50% of the REPUBLICANS who voted in the election.
The Yes On C crowd couldn’t even get a majority of their own party – in their own hand-picked best case for them election – to vote for this bill.
Republicans in this state are increasingly a facade, who win by default because the Democrats spend too much time trying to come off as kinder gentler Republicans.
The loud vocalization as means to communicate to the table of election workers was standard in Lincoln County, too.
(Although such an announcement may be misconstrued as “crowing”) There was similar communication involving those presenting to vote as Repub (“R P” announced by the lead worker at the table to signal to other workers “which” of the ballots I was to receive).
This was the procedure for other voters, not just Dems.
Poll workers transcribing a name from state ID to the voter rolls at the polls on election day has been the case for the past few elections as I can recall.
For several years, South Dakota legislators have disregarded the intent, will and desire of the voters, issuing single digit salutes to the voters in the repeated actions of court challenges and legislation to overturn initiated measures.
For some voters, a `No’ vote on Amendment C represented an opportunity to return the gesture.
Collectively, it was a huge gesture. It was a beautiful thing.
I am still not certain that they heard the voters.
Noem got 74% of the vote. “No” got 67% of the vote. There are a lot of voters who have some explaining to do.