In the November general election last year, 20 of South Dakota’s 35 Senate contests featured only one candidate, a Republican.
The same lack of meaningful opposition was true for about half of the seats in the state’s House of Representatives: 11 of the contests, where the top two nominees earn a seat in the Legislature, featured only two Republicans; 10 others featured three candidates, two of whom were Republicans.
“The current system is broken,” Joe Kirby, a retired Sioux Falls businessman and chairman of South Dakota Open Primaries, told Forum News Service in an April 24 interview. “You’ve got only around half of the people eligible to vote in the Republican primary, and that’s the only election that really matters more times than not.”
In a move he says would help moderate those who serve in public office and bring in more voters, Kirby and a group of activists across the political spectrum last week announced their plans to put “open primaries” on the 2024 ballot.
The ballot amendment, led by South Dakotans for Open Primaries, would amend the South Dakota Constitution and turn the current two-primary system — one run by Democrats and the other by Republicans — into a single primary, where the top two vote-getters would advance to the general election.
The change would apply to the statewide primaries for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, as well as all elections at the county and state legislative levels.
Source : Republic
