PIERRE, S.D. (MITCHELLNOW) The Legislature passed with an emergency clause, meaning the law took effect in April rather than the typical first of July, a law allowing South Dakotans to request the withdrawal of their signature from a petition for an initiated measure or constitutional provision for placement on the general election ballot. In the roughly four months since the law has gone into effect, twenty-one people have availed themselves of that opportunity.
South Dakota Secretary of State, Monae Johnson, said that all 21 have requested their names be removed from the petition to liberalize South Dakota’s abortion law which currently allows abortion only to save the life of the mother. The petition was for an amendment to the South Dakota Constitution which required 35,017. The abortion petition received 46,098 valid signatures.
The Life Defense Fund challenged the petitions in court and lost in the first round. They have indicated they will appeal. The Life Defense Fund has raised $366,000 so far, presumably to be spent for court costs and ads opposing the measure in the fall campaign, should their appeal fail.