SB 201 petition gathers 28,000 signatures
A group of citizens calling for a referendum of South Dakota’s SB 201 turned in around 28,000 signatures this week.
Jim Eschenbaum, Hand County Commissioner, Miller, South Dakota, served as the chairman of the petition drive.
He said the Secretary of State told him that 17,508 signatures were needed in order to refer the issue back to the voters and secure a spot on the ballot.
Eschenbaum said the group had planned to turn in signatures Monday, June 24, 2024, because that was 90 days after the day they obtained their first signature. The Secretary of State’s office told them that Tuesday, June 25, was their due date, but in an abundance of caution and to avoid their signatures being thrown out, the group decided to turn signatures on June 24.
“We had set a goal of 25,000. We weren’t quite to that goal by 10 am Monday morning, but we figured we’d be close,” he said.
“We turned in about 28,000 signatures,” he said. The petition gatherers met together in Pierre on Tuesday, and actually had in hand another approximately 2,000 signatures, but those were not submittable because the group had already submitted and verified their packet of signature sheets the day before.