Voter Guide Fall 2018

Robbinsdale Radical Voter Guide Fall 2018

Hi everyone, time to push the needle away from disaster. The ballots are posted, early voting has started and we're off the races. So let's start.

Register to Vote

Don't assume anything here, who knows what's been happening to our registration records. Here are the links that you should check right now:

• Register To Vote (details) (form)
• Check existing registration using the SD SOS VIP 
• Once the site identifies you, it tells you where to vote and gives you a link to download a sample ballot (Know Before You Go!) AWESOME

Vote Party Line

That's right. More than 30 years of Republican control has led to the formation of a Pierre Political Class that has absolutely no accountability (or, apparently, shame). Do you want to do something about back room deals, sexual harassment, and a commitment to closed caucuses, political grandstanding, and gerrymandering? IM22 did you no good. The solution is to vote Democratic and cut into the one-party stranglehold on our state government!

(And, about our US House vote, even if you have issues with Tim Bjorkman's forced-birth beliefs, we need a Dem-led House Oversight committee to stop the madness. Now.

Here's the Dem slate for Robbinsdale voters:

US House: Tim Bjorkman
Governor: Billie Sutton, Michell Lavalee
Sec of State: Alexandra Frederick
Attorney General: Randy Seiler
State Auditor: Tom Cool
State Treasurer: Aaron Matson
Comm of School & Public Lands: Woody Houser
Public Util Commission: Wayne Frederick
State Senate 32: Ayla Rodriguez
State House 32: Susan Kelts, Bill Knight (Sue is my awesome neighbor!)

Honestly I am tempted to vote for my friend Scyller Borglum who is running for 32 House, if I wasn't so disgusted with the closed caucuses and insider trading that goes on in Pierre. (Sorry Scyller, it's definitely not you, it's your Republican colleagues. Every seat taken away from the Pierre Permanent Majority makes South Dakota air that much cleaner.)

Vote for the Good Guys

There are a few non partisan elections.

• This is my favorite, my neighbor Dan Driscoll is running for West River Water Dev District board against the Wingnut caucus - his opponent is one of the people that ran for this board just so they could torch it, their main reason for being there is so they can brag about how much they hate government while sitting in a government-paid chair. Very funny. Please vote for Dan Driscoll to stop this craziness.
• Supreme Court Judge Janine Kern is up for voter confirmation. As much as I hate voting for judges I have heard many good things about Justice Kern over the years so I will vote yes.

Avoid messing up our Constitution Yet Again

• Amendment W is just a mess. Although it means well, trying to limit the damage political contributions, it doesn't address the root of the problem in South Dakota: lack of transparency. Also in a post-Citizens United world, it (like its sibling IM 24) will never be enforced because of constitutional issues, since money is speech these days. No
• Amendment X is yet another paternalistic attempt by the Legislature to make it harder for the voters to change the constitution, for no good reason. Let the people vote. Just No
• Amendment Z is another vague attempt to disenfranchise us by opening future amendments to legal challenges on what ground that will boil down to parsing of sentences to see what qualifies as a single issue.  Complex amendments should be evaluated on their merits by the voters, not the SOS's sentence diagramming skills. (Or in the case of Amendment W, their lack of merit!) Hell No.
• Initiated Measure 24 is an attempt to stop out of state interests from pouring money into South Dakota elections. The only solution here is at the Federal level, overturning Citizen's United (like that's gonna happen).  IM 24 is blatantly unconstitutional and will cost us a bundle defending a law that will never be enforceable. No No No.
• Initiated Measure 25 is an addition cigarette tax and yet another tax on the disenfranchised low income residents of South Dakota. Just put it out.

Go vote!

• Just do it, the sooner the better. Voting is open now at the County Courthouse weekdays.