It wasn’t a cop-out. Really, it wasn’t.
But I suppose it might have sounded like one to the young, eager petition carrier after she approached me in front of the city administration building in downtown Rapid City.
“Sir, are you registered to vote in South Dakota?” she asked with a big smile.
I said I was.
“Would you be willing to sign this petition to open primary elections in South Dakota to all voters, including independents?” she asked.
I said I might be, eventually, but “I’m a semi-retired reporter and I’m going to write something about this. So I really don’t want to sign until I’ve written it.”
My response was a slight departure from the one I used over many years as a full-time news reporter, which was some version of this: “I’m a reporter, so I can’t sign petitions.”
I’m not much of a reporter anymore. Now I’m a blogger and radio commentator, kind of a senior journalist of sorts — as opposed to out of sorts, which is what I frequently was when under deadline pressure during my years as a “real” reporter.
I miss a lot about full-time news work. But I don’t miss that deadline pressure at all. And I kind of like the option of engaging in parts of a political process that I held at arm’s length for many years.
Such as signing petitions.
No Labels is a no sell with me
Anyway, I was having a typical semi-retired, stress-free afternoon, sipping an iced chai-tea latte and strolling casually around Main Street Square before deciding to head back to my car parked in front of the city building
As I neared my pickup, I was approached by the pleasant young woman carrying a couple of clipboards.
After I told her I couldn’t sign the Open Primaries petition — not yet, at least — because I planned to write about it, she offered another clipboard. “Would you be interested in signing our No Labels petition? It’s … “
I interrupted, politely I hope.
“I’m sorry, but that I definitely won’t sign that,” I said. “I think No Labels is well intended. But if you guys manage to put a centrist presidential candidate on the ballot in 2024, somebody like Joe Manchin, you could pretty much guarantee that Donald Trump will be our president, again. And I don’t want that.”
An old white guy wishing we had fewer old white guys in power
She said she could see my concerns, but wanted, politely, to make some counter arguments. I listened to a few, but still didn’t sign that petition. We had a nice chat, though, agreeing on the need for more younger candidates and minorities in politics.
“I’m 71 and I think we have way too many old white guys in positions of authority,” I said.
She smiled at that, declining to agree too vigorously, perhaps, with an old white guy complaining about old white guys. These things can get complicated out on the sidewalk, with clipboards in hand. It was clear she didn’t want to take a chance on offending me, even as I poked fun at myself.
Smart petition carriers are cautious ones, with good reason. They are the focus of more scrutiny and in some cases more restrictions — or attempts at more restrictions — in South Dakota and other brighter-shade-of-red states.
Basically the whole process of citizen-initiated laws and constitutional amendments has been under attack in this state for a number of years. It still is. So far, advocates of the process and a majority of voters have kept the long, valued traditions of petition drives alive.
So I admired the young woman for what she was doing. It’s hard, essential work. And I agreed with her that there is need for more political balance in South Dakota, which brought us back to Open Primaries. She spoke of the growing number of independents in the state, a potentially powerful block of voters often unable to fully use their numerical clout because races for many key offices are decided in the primary elections.
Almost always in Republican primary elections, of course.
RINOS? You’re looking at one of them
The voter registration numbers are disheartening for Democrats, but also for independents. Independents can vote in Democratic primaries but not Republican primaries, which often select the candidates who will go on to win in the general election.
Sometimes those Republican primary winners won’t even face a challenger in the general election.
I acknowledged the growing independent voters in South Dakota to the petition carrier, but also noted that Republicans are still the most powerful force in the state, by far. GOP voting registrations alone equaling both registered Democrats and registered independents. (The exact registration numbers, as of May 1, were: Republicans, 301,412; Democrats, 151,142; independents, 148,386.)
But the petition carrier persisted gently: “A lot of those registered Republicans registered that way so they can have a voice in the process.”
I grinned: “Certainly some did. Probably quite a few. And you’re looking at one of them.”
She grinned back. And at that point I noticed the continued trickle of people in and out of the city building and assumed the petition carrier had more pressing business than chatting with an old white guy. So I resumed my desultory stroll back to my pickup and she turned and called out to a woman walking toward the city building.
“Ma’am, are you registered to vote in South Dakota?”
Kicking off the Open Primaries petition drive
Just a few blocks away from where I met the petition carrier, I recently attended a news conference by South Dakota Open Primaries, the statewide ballot committee pushing a change in our primary election system. The East River Open Primaries leaders had already gone public. Now it was West River’s turn.
West River organizers Nick Reid, Nicole Heenan, Chuck Parkinson and Holly Knox Perli made the pitch for the petition drive and the need to give independent voters more of a say in the selection of general-election candidates.
Open Primaries volunteers like the one I met are working to gather more than 35,000 signatures (and then some for a cushion) by May of 2024 to put a proposed amendment to the South Dakota Constitution on the 2024 general election ballot. The amendment would create a top-two open primary for governor, state legislative offices, county offices, the U.S. Senate and U.S. House.
Here’s the key language in the proposal:
“A primary election held for the office of governor, a legislative office, a county office, the United States Senate, or the United States House of Representatives shall be open to all candidates and all qualified voters without regard to the candidates’ or voters’ party registration or affiliation, or lack thereof.“
The top two finishers would go on to the general election in the fall.
Approval of the amendment would end the current process of selecting general election candidates through separate party primaries.
Like me, Holly Knox Perli is a registered Republican, but pragmatically so.
“People who know me know that’s not me,” she said during the news conference. “I don’t identify as conservative. And frankly, that’s not how I vote. But at least I can vote.”
There it is.
Republican registration often only way to have impact
Knox Perli said she changed her registration so she could cast a vote in a primary race for a county seat with only two Republican candidates running. There were no other candidates in the race, so the Republican primary winner would win the seat. Without changing her registration so she could vote in the GOP primary, Knox Perli would not have had any say in who that winner was.
“It’s what I did, like a lot of other registered Democrats and independents …” she said. “What I’d rather do, though, is open the primaries in South Dakota.”
Nicole Heenan said she is an independent who registered Democratic so she could run last year against incumbent Republican state Sen. Helene Duhamel in District 32 here in Rapid City. Heenan lost, but the experience inspired her to get involved with Open Primaries and its petition drive.
Heenan said it’s difficult enough to beat an incumbent, much less one that is supported by a dominant party in a system that denies so many voters a real chance to make a difference. She noted that 21 of 35 South Dakota state senators ran unopposed last year.
Just four of the 35 state senators are Democrats, by the way. And Democrats hold just seven of the 70 South Dakota House seats.
As a believer in at least some degree of political balance in government, So I’m worried by such one-party domination. Heenan is worried even more.
“A one-party dominance leads to a stagnant, unresponsive and unaccountable political culture that doesn’t truly reflect the will of the voters,” Heenan said. “Open primary elections will allow more sensible candidates to move forward. It will encourage more people to consider running and to take part in one of the most American things to participate in: a government by and for the people.”
Addressing the drop in young-voter participation
Chuck Parkinson is, like me, an old white guy. Beyond that, he is a Republican with extensive D.C. experience who worked for Sen. Jim Abdnor, U.S. House and U.S. Senate committees and President Ronald Reagan. Back here in his home state, he has voted in every general election since his first in 1972 (which was also my first) and works today in trying to encourage civic participation and voter turnout.
Parkinson noted a troubling decline in voter turnout overall in South Dakota in recent years, with a 59.4 percent statewide turnout in 2022 and just 53.6 percent in Pennington County — the seventh lowest in the state.
Of particular concern is the low turnout among younger voters, Parkinson said. Only 32 percent of voters age 18 to 29 voted in South Dakota in 2022, according to the Center for Information Research and Civics Learning Engagement. That was the lowest turnout for that age group of any state in the nation, Parkinson said, adding that South Dakota ranks 47th nationally in civics engagement.
“Open primaries will not be the cure-all,” he said. “However, it will make voting easier and encourage more people to vote, especially young people and independents. It will encourage moderation in politics, leading us back to governing from the middle.”
That makes sense, the moderation thing. It has long been considered expedient for Republicans to drift right for the primary — where the hard-right tends to be more influential — before sliding back toward the middle for the general election. Without general-election concerns, Republicans can live farther on the right side for years.
The same can be said of Democrats living on the far left side in strongly blue states. Parkinson said opening the primaries in California is causing a shift toward the middle by Democratic politicians there.
Making it about ideas over party
Nick Reid said open primaries could change politics for the better in South Dakota.
Reid, an unsuccessful independent candidate for the state House from District 33 in 2018, told public radio during a candidate interview that year that he had previously been a Republican in the William Buckley mold. He said he was running as an independent because there was too much control of Republican candidates and office holders by GOP leaders.
“So many things in the state have become about party and not ideas,” he told public radio then. “And that’s a problem.”
During the Open Primaries news conference, Reid said open primaries would mean candidates for public office could “no longer simply rest on their party affiliation but must answer to the entire public and earn the right to be in the general election.”
Not everybody agrees, of course. And as you’d expect, most of the disagreement comes from the dominant South Dakota Republican Party. In a story by John Hult of South Dakota Searchlight, GOP state Chairman John Wiik said he is “110 percent opposed” to the petition drive and the amendment, if it makes it to the ballot.
GOP Leader says primary system works for all
Wiik said it’s only fair that primaries be used to pick candidates to represent parties in the general election.
“A primary is a necessary part of an election; it serves the entire public,” Wiik told .
That has generally been my belief for most of my life. And it was kind of what I was thinking in 2016 when I voted against a similar ballot issue to create an open-primary system in the state. Proposed Amendment V on the general election ballot that year would have created “nonpartisan primaries” where the top two primary vote getters would go on to the general election.
There would have been no designation on the ballot of “D” or “R” or “i” (or “L,” I can’t leave out Bob Newland and the Libertarians) on the ballot with the candidates’ names.
I wasn’t comfortable with that at the time. I wish all voters would get informed enough and be issue oriented enough to cast their ballots based on that personal education and commitment. But some, maybe many voters aren’t all that well-informed.
Some voters, perhaps many, rely on party identification in their candidate choices, figuring candidates of a specific party — or independent candidates — likely align with their own philosophy. So, in 2016 at least, I believed voters who didn’t know much about individual candidates should have the right to vote according to party ID if they wanted to.
And I believed that candidates should have the right to include their party registration on the ballot.
There was a lot of opposition to proposed Amendment V beyond me. It failed 46 percent to 54 percent.
This year’s proposed Open Primaries amendment would allow for each candidate to be identified by registration status, while still sending the top-two vote getters on to the general election. So all voters could participate in the same primary but they could pick out candidates by party registration if they wanted to.
That makes this year’s version of open primaries more appealing to me.
From moving furniture to changing constitution
It takes me some time to support major changes of just about any kind. I can get a little woozy if I come home and my wife has rearranged the living-room furniture. So you can imagine how hesitant I might be about amending the state constitution.
During the seven years since the 2016 vote, however, I have watched the dominant Republican Party further consolidate its hold on just about every office of significance in South Dakota. And the party is increasingly being influenced by its hard-right wing, which is obviously intent on taking over.
Because extremists tend to be more politically active, the primary system we have now is heavily influenced by the hard right. To get through the primary, Republican candidates feel — probably rightly so — that they must slide farther right.
That pushes good candidates farther away from the middle, diminishes the hopes for moderates, adds to political division and discourages people with reasonable ideas and respectful styles from stepping into the maelstrom.
I still need to think about this version of primary election reform before I’m ready to vote for it. But I’m more inclined now to support it than I was seven years ago. And I think we need another serious discussion about how we choose our general-election candidates in this state.
An extended ballot-issue campaign with an examination of the pros and cons is a time-tested way to have such a discussion.
So next time I’m casually strolling around downtown, I’ll be ready to sign that petition.
