By Dave Baumeister, County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – The Tuesday, June 7, primary races in Minnehaha County saw the election of a new Register of Deeds, a new Republican candidate for County Auditor, and the resounding defeat of a South Dakota constitutional amendment.
The closest race had challenger Leah Anderson of Sioux Falls besting incumbent Ben Kyte in the Republican primary race for the position of Minnehaha County Auditor by 7,515 to 6,575 votes.
Anderson, who ran on the issue of “election integrity” was able to take advantage of the integrity of this election process to win by a 53 to 47% margin.
In the November General Election, she will face Democrat Brian Wirth of Dell Rapids for the auditor’s position.
Amanda Halsey of Sioux Falls will take over the job of Minnehaha County Register of Deeds from the retiring Julie Risty after defeating Chad Zink, also of Sioux Falls, in the Republican Primary with 6,532 (54%) votes to Cink’s 5,553 (46%).
And since there are no other election challengers for the November ballot, Halsey will assume the position of Register of Deeds in January 2023.
But by a ridiculously large margin of 67% to 33%, statewide, and 70% to 30% in Minnehaha County, Constitutional Amendment C was killed by the voters.
Amendment C was passed by the state legislature and placed on the primary ballot – an election that would see considerably fewer voters at the polls than a general election.
However, this was also a criticism of Amendment C, as it left making a major change in the state constitution less accessible to voters, since Democratic, Libertarian and Independent voters, had, for the most part, no statewide primary races to bring them out to vote.
Currently, the legislature must meet a 60 percent threshold to pass bills that raise taxes more than a certain amount.
Amendment C was written to put that same 60% threshold on any voter-introduced ballot initiative which would also raise taxes.
One of the stated reasons behind this was “fairness,” that 51% of the voters should be held to the same standard for raising taxes as 60% of legislators.
However, people against the measure pointed out that 60% of legislators constitutes only 63 state voters, but for an initiated measure to pass currently, it requires the majority of 291,180 South Dakotans to pass it.
Voters apparently felt that passing a new law by a margin of 291,117 votes more than the legislature needed should be enough to make it valid.
The process now in place for voters to introduce an initiated measure and pass them by a simple majority has been part of state politics since 1898 when South Dakota became the first state in the Union to allow the Initiative law process.
Amendment C, which failed by a vote of 59,111 “yes” to 122,387 “no” was introduced by Rep. Jon Hansen of Dell Rapids during the 2021 legislative session.
The Minnehaha County Commission met Friday, June 10, and confirmed the county results in their official vote canvas.
The commission used their usual meeting room for the canvas, as they will for 2023 budget hearings on June 14, 16 and 17.
After that, the county commission will be making use of Carnegie Town Hall in Sioux Falls for its meetings until sometime in July.
Their next regular meeting is scheduled for that locale at 9 a.m. Tuesday, June 21.
Plans were in place last month to be using the newly constructed meeting space on the third floor of the Minnehaha County Administration Building at 6th and Minnesota as early as mid-June, but while that space is ready, there have been problems getting the necessary audio-visual equipment installed.
