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A coalition of anti-tobacco groups say 10,000 signtures on a petition to bring South Dakota's smoking ban to a public vote are invalid.
Jump to full article: KSFY Television ABC (Sioux Falls, SD), 2009-07-02
Author: KSFY Staff
Intro: Thousands of South Dakota establishments were to have gone smoke free July 1st but didn't because of a petition filed to block it.
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South Dakota's Secretary of State's office tells Action News this is the first time the validity of a state-certified public petition has been challenged. . . .
Today anti-tobacco groups, including the American Heart Association, say nearly 10,000 petition signatures are not valid and they are challenging its validity.
This afternoon, we spoke with the American Heart Association's Darrin Smith. He tells us the challenge was filed with the Secretary of State's office in Pierre at 4 o'clock Thursday afternoon. He said, "Several thousand people who signed the petition sheet are not registered voters. That was a very common mistake, in fact, the most common mistake made. Next, would probably be notary irregularities. There were several thousand signatures that we feel are invalid as a result of that."
. . .
We asked Deputy Secretary of State Teresa Bray this afternoon how they will validate the 10,000 signatures in question. "It is quite involved. Just doing the random sampling took us about 3 days to check and that was about 1,300 signatures so you can imagine how long it will take to do 10,000 signatures."
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