Any law which the Legislature may have enacted, except one that may be necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, or support of the state government and its existing public institutions, shall, upon the filing of a petition as provided in this chapter, be submitted to a vote of the electors of the state at the next general election. The petition shall be signed by not less than five percent of the qualified electors of the state. The form of the petition, including petition size and petition font size, shall be prescribed by the State Board of Elections.
S.D. Codified Laws § 2-1-3
Referendum--Laws subject to petition--Form
Applied in 8 court decisions — leading case SDDS, Inc. v. State (1992)
Most recently applied in Dakotans for Health v. Barnett (May 2021)
Source: SDC 1939, § 55.0402; SL 1957, ch 278, § 2; SL 1976, ch 105, § 77; SL 2018, ch 75, § 4.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: South Dakota Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Dakota statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.