Maybe I'm over cautious when I see someone gathering petition signatures these days.  After hearing stories of alleged people flying into the State to gather petitions and violating residency laws, I can't help wonder who is doing it legally and who isn't.

According to Attorney General Marty Jackley, those who gather petitions must be at least 18, a resident of South Dakota, and not get paid by the signature.  It appears most of that clears with this collector, who was kind enough to show me his state ID to prove residency.

The only thing that concerned me is in this case was the opportunity for signatures to be swapped from one petition to the other.  The man I spoke with had multiple petitions, told me what it was for, but the page I was asked to sign didn't have the Attorney General's description on that particular page.  I asked to see the page that had the actual description.   The page including the description had only a couple of signatures with many blank lines awaiting future signatures.  I then discovered how easy it could be to swap petition signatures from one issue to another.

If you are asked to sign a petition, don't be afraid to ask a lot of questions, and make sure the petition you to want to sign is indeed the one your name is attached to, especially when someone is gathering for multiple issues.

 

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