Opening Primaries on the Great Plains: Are Stars Aligned for South Dakota Reform?

The Purple Principle

“I like to say the stars are aligned for open primaries right now,” says South Dakota Open Primaries Director Joe Kirby. “I think there’s a realization that closed primaries simply don’t make sense when you’re in a single party state.”

“I also think that Open Primaries will foster a more representative and functional government,” adds De Knudson, former Sioux Falls City Councilor and Co-Director of “Amendment H” - an effort to create a single unified primary of all candidates from which the top two advance to the general election. This 2024 South Dakota measure is more modest than reforms advanced by the same team eight years ago which failed by ten points on Election Day.

“We learned a valuable lesson in 2016,” admits Kirby, a business entrepreneur also involved in political reform efforts for three decades. “We tried to do two things at once. We tried to bring open primaries to South Dakota at the same time we tried to remove party labels.”

In this episode, John Opdycke, Founder and President of the national organization Open Primaries, explains why the 2024 crop of non-partisan election reforms is more robust and more diverse.

“Part of what I think is so healthy is that the national groups are saying, Hey, let us show you our research, let us show you what this looks like from up looking down,” says Opdycke, one of the nation’s foremost experts on election reform. “And the local people say, great, that's really helpful. Let us show you what our local polling looks like. Let us show you what our political culture looks like.”

For Joe Kirby, De Knudson and many other supporters, Amendment H is an effort to turn away from political extremism and divisiveness and back toward traditional South Dakota values.

“I really love South Dakota,” says Knudson. “I care lots about government. I just knew that I didn't have a choice. I had to give this one more shot, and I really am confident that we will win this on November 5th.”

Tune in to find out more about the 2024 South Dakota open primaries initiative– past lessons learned and prospects for passage this year.

This episode is part of our season long series on state level non partisan election reform ballot measures in 2024– from Washington DC to Alaska with numerous states in between– Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, South Dakota, and, next up, Arizona.

With a record number of state level reforms this year, stay tuned to see if the stars align in South Dakota and on a national level.

The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production; original music by Ryan Adair Rooney.