S.D. Bill Makes It Easier for Third Parties to Stay on Ballot

image
Published: 01 Mar, 2018
Updated: 21 Nov, 2022
1 min read

On February 27, the South Dakota Senate unanimously passed HB 1012. The bill is now on its way to the governor. No legislator in either house voted against this bill. It says that a party must meet the vote test every four years. Current law says it must pass the vote test every two years. The bill has an urgency clause so assuming it is signed by the governor, it will go into effect immediately.

For many years the vote test only had to be met every four years, but could only be satisfied by the gubernatorial vote. Last year, when the legislature eased that law to say any statewide office counts, that had the accidental indirect consequence of requiring the vote test to be met every two years. So the new bill restores the old rule that the vote test need be met only every four years.

Editor's Note: This article originally published on Ballot Access News, and has been republished with permission from the author.

Latest articles

A man filling out his election ballot.
Oregon Activist Sues over Closed Primaries: 'I Shouldn't Have to Join a Party to Have a Voice'
A new lawsuit filed in Oregon challenges the constitutionality of the state’s closed primary system, which denies the state’s largest registered voting bloc – independent voters – access to taxpayer-funded primary elections. The suit alleges Oregon is denying the voters equal voting rights...
01 Jul, 2025
-
3 min read
Supreme Court building.
Supreme Court Sides with Federal Corrections Officers in Lawsuit Over Prison Incident
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 30 that federal prison officers and officials cannot be sued by an inmate who accused them of excessive force during a 2021 incident, delivering a victory for federal corrections personnel concerned about rising legal exposure for doing their jobs....
01 Jul, 2025
-
3 min read
Marijuana plant.
Why the War on Cannabis Refuses to Die: How Boomers and the Yippies Made Weed Political
For much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American physicians freely prescribed cannabis to treat a wide range of ailments. But by the mid-twentieth century, federal officials were laying the groundwork for a sweeping criminal crackdown. Cannabis would ultimately be classified as a Schedule I substance, placed alongside heroin and LSD, and transformed into a political weapon that shaped American policy for the next six decades....
30 Jun, 2025
-
2 min read