South Dakotans Who Signed Abortion Petition Getting Creepy Calls From Anti-Abortion Group
They want to intimidate enough people into removing their names to get it off November's ballot.
Last week, abortion rights group Dakotans For Health submitted a petition to the South Dakota Secretary of State’s office calling for a ballot measure to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution. They needed 35,017 signatures from registered voters in order to qualify.
They got more than 55,000.
The petition still has to go through the verification process, but after that happens, it will appear on the November 5 ballot. That’s how it’s supposed to work, anyway. But a group of anti-abortion creeps are hoping to take advantage of a new law that allows people to remove their names from petitions up until they are officially validated — and, unsurprisingly, they’re getting a little scammy about it.
On Monday, South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson — a full-on MAGA, election-denying Republican, mind you — issued a statement warning voters of scam calls from people pretending to be employees of her office and trying to pressure them into taking their names off the petition.
“Citizens in South Dakota, by law, have the right to petition and people like these scammers are eroding public trust in the election process,” Johnson said in a press release.
In order to validate signatures, the Secretary of State’s office pulls 700 names at random to call and verify that they did indeed sign the petition. A new political action committee founded by Republican state legislator Jon Hansen called South Dakota Petition Integrity was able to get hold of those names through a public records request and has been calling them in order to “independently verify” that they signed the petition and also knew what they were signing. The group is affiliated with Life Defense Fund, an anti-abortion organization of which Rep. Hansen is a co-chair.
Hansen also claims that people were tricked into signing the petition by being told that it was to eliminate the sales tax on groceries, which seems fairly unlikely.
While Hansen maintains that the group has clearly explained that they are volunteers, not affiliated with the Secretary of State’s office, and not intimidating anybody, many of the voters who were called say that this was not the case! Of course, the idea of getting any kind of “Hey, we saw you signed this abortion petition, can you remove your name from it?” phone call feels a little intimidating in and of itself.
Adrienne Bosma signed the petition and volunteered with Dakotans for Health as a petition circulator. She said a caller from South Dakota Petition Integrity created the impression of being officially associated with the Secretary of State’s Office.
The volunteer asked questions, including whether Bosma knew the petition “allows for abortion up to birth.” Bosma said she challenged the volunteer’s language before the volunteer hung up the phone.
“I was so mad, I was physically shaking,” Bosma said. “If you’re calling people and harassing them when they’re exercising their First Amendment right, that’s over the line. That’s not OK.”
It really is not! Also, no, the ballot measure does not “allow for abortion up until the moment of birth,” and not just because that’s not actually a thing. It would “legalize abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy but allow the state to impose limited regulations in the second trimester and a ban in the third trimester, with exceptions for the life and health of the mother.”
Pamela McClure received a voicemail that stated the caller’s name and organization. The voicemail also said the group “received” her name from the South Dakota secretary of state.
“She said she was a volunteer of the group registered with the secretary of state and got my name from the secretary of state,” McClure said. “To me, that means she’s working with the Secretary of State’s Office.”
It would probably mean that to pretty much anyone who got such a phone call.
The group also made the mistake of contacting Amy Scott-Stoltz, the president of the South Dakota League of Women Voters, who says the volunteer who contacted her refused to answer questions about the group and its intent.
“This just made it legal for them to call and have no restrictions on what they can or cannot say to me, where there are restrictions for petition circulators,” Scott-Stoltz told the South Dakota Searchlight. “I wasn’t told who this committee was and couldn’t find any information on them at the time. Basically, the transparency wasn’t there.”
As a person who is quite literally mad about things at a professional level, one thing I can tell you is that if you have to make shit up in order to make your case, you don’t actually have one. The fact that these people keep doing this “abortion up until the moment of birth!” thing telegraphs that even they don’t really believe their own bullshit. The fact that they have to engage in this kind of intimidation says the same.
Also, if they really believed voters were with them on abortion rights, they would not be so scared of a little ballot measure. They would feel confident that the voters would vote against it. But they’re not, because they know in their heart of hearts that most people, even many who publicly profess to be against abortion, don’t actually want it to be illegal.
PREVIOUSLY:
At long last, have you left no sense of decency? Yeah, silly question.
Last weekend at our little local farmers' market I signed a petition to put abortion access on the ballot in Arkansas. I was actually on my way home, but saw the sign and the woman collecting signatures and found a place to park a block away. Walked over, assured her I'm registered to vote in this county, signed, thanked her, went back to my car and drove my ass on home.
Hope they're back this weekend so my husband can sign!