Signs pointed to influence of ‘no on everything’ mentality in ballot question defeats
A vehicle bearing the message "vote no on everything" is parked outside a polling place on Nov. 5, 2024, in Rapid City, near a sign marking a "no campaigning" perimeter. (Seth Tupper/South Dakota Searchlight)
Before Tuesday night's election results were revealed, there were signs of a bad night for ballot questions — literally.
A no-campaigning perimeter was established around the polling place where I voted Tuesday morning. Parked as close as possible to that perimeter was a vehicle with a message scrawled in large lettering on its windows: "Vote no on everything."
Many South Dakota voters did exactly that. According to unofficial results, only one of seven ballot questions passed — a measure from legislators seeking permission to consider work requirements for expanded Medicaid eligibility.
The others all failed: updates to antiquated male-only language in the state constitution, abortion rights, open primaries, a repeal of the state's grocery sales taxes, recreational marijuana legalization (as opposed to medical marijuana, which is already legal in the state), and changes to carbon-capture pipeline laws.
Election results
View results from all of the ballot question and statewide races on South Dakota Searchlight's Results Page .
When I got inside my polling place and sat down with a ballot, I tried to see the explanations of those measures through a busy voter's eyes, instead of the eyes of a journalist who's been forcibly steeped in the issues for months. What I saw was one of the most complicated ballots I can ever remember encountering.
The Medicaid measure was comparatively straightforward. It essentially asked whether able-bodied people receiving government assistance should be required to work. It also may have benefited from being listed second among the seven ballot questions, where it could be read with relatively fresh eyes.
The other ballot questions were thorny issues layered with complexity, poorly understood aims or meanings, and debatable consequences — some of them inherent, and some of them highlighted by the attorney general's official explanation or in campaigns by opposition groups.
The constitutional language measure suffered from an attorney general's explanation that made it sound like part of the culture wars over gender.
The abortion-rights measure asked voters to approve a three-tiered system with language that the opposition effectively characterized as overly broad.
The open primaries measure asked voters to make a novel change to a primary election system that few of them care to know anything about currently, judging by chronically poor primary election turnout percentages.
The grocery sales tax measure addressed "human consumption" items, leading to speculation it would apply to more than groceries and cost the state hundreds of millions in lost revenue.
The marijuana legalization measure would merely have legalized a limited form of possession, use and free distribution, instead of retail sales as some voters probably supposed.
The pipeline measure was loaded down by a multiyear backstory and legislative maneuvering that made it difficult for many voters to determine who the law would benefit or hurt. Some voters said as much to South Dakota Searchlight reporters in polling place interviews Tuesday.
"I kept reading it and reading it and was so confused," said voter Kenya Mejia.
Another voter, Linda Price, said, "I shouldn't have voted on that one at all. I just don't know."
Voters such as those may have found "vote no on everything" to be a comforting, time-saving slogan. In the weeks leading up to the election, I saw informal-looking signs popping up around Rapid City expressing the sentiment.
Some of the sentiment was manufactured. A statewide ballot question committee called Vote No SD reported spending about $13,000 before the election to encourage no votes on abortion rights, open primaries, legal marijuana and the pipeline law. A political action committee, Concerned Citizens of South Dakota , reported spending about $6,000 and told South Dakotans to vote yes on F and no on the rest , which is what a majority of voters ended up doing.
Both groups are chaired by people who are active in political circles — Vote No SD by Chris Larson, who writes a politically themed blog on the Substack platform, and Concerned Citizens by Travis Ismay, a Republican state representative-elect from Newell.
Ultimately, though, those groups' expenditures were minimal, leaving open the possibility of an organic component to the "vote no" mindset.
Many other factors contributed to the defeat of the ballot measures. There was an extremely organized and effective campaign against the grocery sales tax repeal, powered by business interests . Abortion-rights activists were outspent , out-advertised and out-organized by anti-abortion activists. Recreational marijuana may simply be ahead of its time, at least in South Dakota.
And then there was the intimidating totality of the long and complex legalese that filled the ballot. That may be a sign for backers of citizen initiatives and referendums to heed: the simpler, the better.
