MEDIA RELEASE

From the Office of the South Dakota Secretary of State

GANT ANNOUNCES MINIMUM WAGE BALLOT MEASURE PASSES SIGNATURE CERTIFICATION PROCESS

Secretary of State Jason Gant announced today that the petitions submitted for an initiated measure to increase the state minimum wage has passed the petition certification process, and will be placed on the November 4, 2014 General Election ballot.  The measure, described in its title as “An initiated measure to increase the state minimum wage,” will now appear on the ballot as Initiated Measure 18.

“From our 5% sample of 1,283 signatures, we validated 1,044 out of the 25,658 officially submitted and invalidated 239 for various reasons including lack of voter registration, improperly filling out the petitions, legibility, and notary public errors. Invalid signatures comprised 18.63% of the total signatures sampled, and under state law, the number of valid signatures sampled was sufficient for the measure to pass validation for the ballot,” Gant said. “If we extrapolate the valid signatures, as per South Dakota Law, they submitted 20,878 valid signatures, well over the minimum requirement of 15,855 needed.”

“Any group wishing to challenge the validation has 5 business days, which will be Friday, the 13^th of December,” Gant said.

Gant noted, “This measure marks the second initiated measure that will appear on the 2014 General Election. This measure joins Initiated Measure 17 as the only ballot questions currently on the ballot.  The legislature does have the option to include constitutional measures on the ballot, and citizens have the ability to refer laws passed during the 2014 session.”

As with all ballot measures facing voters, if they would like additional information, the Secretary of State website has more information including the Title and Explanation of this measure.

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