Abortion Rights Amendment certified for November ballot

An abortion rights amendment to the state Constitution has been certified by the South Dakota Secretary of State’s Office for the November ballot.

The office says, based on a random sampling, more than 46,000 signaures are valid. It required 35,017.

Rick Weiland of Dakotans for Health led the effort to get the measure on the ballot. He says they ended up with over 11,000 more valid signatures than required to make the ballot.

Weiland says the petitions were validated even after, quote, “The so-called ‘Petition Integrity Committee’ tried to trick petition signers by implying they were from the Secretary of State’s office and pressuring them to take their names off our petition.” End quote.

He hopes there can be a civil discussion about the issue and the amendment.

May 17, 2024