Background
South Dakota allows citizens to place proposed statutes and constitutional amendments on the statewide ballot after collecting the required number of signatures. In 2023, the Eighth Circuit invalidated the state’s requirement that petitions be filed one year before the general election, concluding that the deadline violated the First Amendment under the Anderson-Burdick framework. South Dakota first adopted a six-month deadline and later enacted H.B. 1184, which moved the deadline to nine months before the election.
Dakotans for Health and organizer Rick Weiland sued the South Dakota secretary of state in her official capacity, arguing that the nine-month deadline likewise violated the First Amendment. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court permanently enjoined the deadline. South Dakota appealed, asserting that the additional three months would allow private challenges to ballot petitions to be resolved before Election Day and thereby protect election integrity and public confidence.
The Court’s Holding
The Eighth Circuit affirmed the permanent injunction. The state conceded that the deadline burdened protected speech and that the applicable test asked whether the reasonable, nondiscriminatory restriction furthered an important regulatory interest. The court assumed without deciding that completing private petition litigation before an election could qualify as such an interest.
The majority held that the record did not show the nine-month deadline meaningfully furthered that asserted interest. South Dakota law permits courts to remedy defective petitions after an election, and the evidence indicated that private challenges would probably remain unresolved through trial or appeal even with the additional three months. The state offered no evidence connecting the incremental extension from six months to nine months with a materially greater likelihood of completing litigation before Election Day.
The court also rejected the state’s public-confidence rationale because it did not explain how litigation likely to remain pending at the election would reassure voters. Because the state failed to connect the deadline to its asserted interests, the deadline could not justify its burden on petition-related speech. Judge Loken dissented, reasoning that additional time self-evidently increased the likelihood of pre-election resolution and advanced South Dakota’s paramount election-integrity interest.
Key Takeaways
- The Eighth Circuit held that South Dakota’s nine-month pre-election filing deadline for citizen ballot petitions violated the First Amendment.
- The court assumed, but did not decide, that facilitating pre-election petition litigation was an important regulatory interest.
- A state must provide evidence connecting a filing deadline to its asserted interest; the possibility that three additional months might help resolve litigation was insufficient on this record.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that moving a ballot-petition deadline closer to Election Day does not automatically cure the constitutional defect identified in the Eighth Circuit’s earlier decision striking down South Dakota’s one-year deadline. Even under less-exacting Anderson-Burdick review, the state must demonstrate that the particular deadline meaningfully advances its stated regulatory interest.
The ruling also leaves unresolved whether promoting the completion of private petition challenges before an election is itself an important regulatory interest. Future disputes may therefore turn both on the legitimacy of that interest and on concrete evidence showing that a challenged deadline actually serves it.