House Bill 1244 and Signature Withdrawal Policy Recap

Sioux Falls — Almost two months ago, Governor Noem signed House Bill 1244 into law. The bill instituted a legal regime allowing South Dakotans who had signed an initiative petition to remove their signature from that petition. The VDA opposed the bill as bad policy that could decrease trust  in the initiative process and disrupt ongoing efforts at direct democracy in South Dakota.

Legislative Efforts

Our objections to HB 1244 were myriad throughout the legislative process. The bill was not aimed at solving a legitimate problem with the initiative process – it was aimed squarely at the initiated amendment to codify abortion rights for South Dakotans, even including an emergency clause without an emergency to address. Simply put, the purpose for bringing signature withdrawal to South Dakota wasn’t to solve problems but to stop the people from voting on policies that our legislators personally disagree with.

Not every bit of this story is bad though – throughout the legislative process, we worked hard to make HB 1244 better. In the initial version, signature withdrawal was completely unregulated, allowing for email withdrawals and greatly weighting the process in favor of anti-initiative forces. Through lobbying efforts, we were able to strip the most harmful provisions from the bill – the version codified into law requires a physical, notarized form to withdraw a signature and the withdrawal time frame is diminished. These changes drastically reduced potential harm to the initiative process. A terrible bill became a bad bill in a small win for South Dakota democracy.

After signature withdrawal’s passage and adoption, it took several weeks for the full ramifications of the policy to show. Throughout our testimony, we warned that a signature withdrawal policy would lead to “withdrawal campaigns” – targeting petition signers in hopes of soliciting a signature withdrawal. In other states with signature withdrawal, these campaigns have damaged public trust in the initiative process and, in the case of Florida, proved a severe enough threat to be ruled unconstitutional in the courts.

Aftermath

Signature withdrawal critics were quickly proven correct. Unsurprisingly, the same groups and legislators advocating for signature withdrawal to target the abortion initiative then used signature withdrawal to target the abortion initiative. Local media covered the campaign thoroughly, including Secretary of State Monae Johnson referring to withdrawal calls as “scams” and allegations that withdrawal callers impersonated Secretary of State employees.

The calls were investigated by the Attorney General’s office and no criminal wrongdoing was found – it is not illegal to impersonate elected officials or government staff in South Dakota if the impersonation does not cause “injury” in the legal sense, and the AG investigation revealed no evidence of injury.

In all, enacting signature withdrawal was a solution without a problem and bad public policy for South Dakota. At a time when faith in electoral institutions is already flagging, an easily abused signature withdrawal regime (as we have here) only heightens existing distrust in the system. 

The VDA maintains its opposition to signature withdrawal policies. South Dakota’s first withdrawal campaign only reinforced that conviction, and we will advocate for safeguards to protect voters from bad-faith political actors. 

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