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Breaking from SOS: Clayton Walker NOT on November U.S. Senate Ballot

An eager reader alerts me to the Secretary of State's announcement minutes ago that Clayton Walker will not be on the November ballot as an Independent candidate for U.S. Senate.

Brookings resident Mary Perpich submitted a challenge to Walker's petitions May 8, specifically questioning the validity of over 1,800 of Walker's 3,429 submitted signatures. With the 52 signatures the Secretary of State's office invalidated in its initial review, Walker had only a 206-signature buffer before falling below the 3,171 needed to get on the ballot. That's less than 12% of the signatures the challenge specifically identified.

Apparently, the Secretary of State found at least 207 additional invalid signatures.*

That means South Dakotans will see a maximum of four possible candidates on their November ballot: Rick Weiland, Gordon Howie, Larry Pressler, and a Republican to be named later.

The SOS announcement doesn't give any details about the challenge, but keep your eyes on the Madville Times as we seek the specifics of what kept Walker out of the race.

*Update 17:13 CDT: David Montgomery reports for that Sioux Falls paper that the actual number of invalidated signatures was 1,613. That means 88% of Perpich's challenged signatures were invalidated. It also means that, in the whole batch of signatures Walker submitted, over 48% were invalidated, either by the SOS Office's initial review or as the result of the challenge.

8 Comments

  1. El Hefe 2014.05.20

    What about Susan Wismer/Joe Lowe?

  2. caheidelberger 2014.05.20

    What about 'em? They're running for Governor (and speaking tonight at the Brookings Public Library, 7 p.m.!). Walker was angling for Senate.

  3. El Hefe 2014.05.20

    Whoops, that was dumb. Apologies.

  4. Lanny V Stricherz 2014.05.20

    So, how cold the SOS rule on this issue but not on the Bosworth challenge? I found it interesting this past week to see that 25 term Democrat from MI, John Conyers, was determined not to have enough petition signatures, because two of the circulators were not registered voters in MI.

  5. Nick Nemec 2014.05.20

    Any idea what the reasons were for invalidating some of the signatures?

  6. caheidelberger 2014.05.20

    Hefe, no sweat. We all get ballot lines mixed up in conversation sometimes. Just don't mix them up at the polls!

  7. Lanny V Stricherz 2014.05.20

    If you were talking to me, Nick, because two of the petition circulators were not registered voters.

  8. Nick Nemec 2014.05.20

    I mean in the case of Clayton Walker.

Comments are closed.