A petition as it is to be circulated for an initiated amendment to the Constitution must be filed with the secretary of state, including an electronic copy of the petition, prior to circulation for signatures and at least one year before the next general election at which the initiated amendment is proposed to be submitted to the voters. The petition filing must:
Each petition circulator shall provide to each person who signs the petition a circulator handout containing the title and explanation of the initiated amendment to the Constitution as prepared by the attorney general; any fiscal note prepared pursuant to § 2-9-30; the name, phone number, and email address of each petition sponsor; and a statement whether the petition circulator is a volunteer or paid circulator and, if a paid circulator, the amount the circulator is being paid. The secretary of state shall approve the circulator handout for each initiated amendment to the Constitution before the petition is circulated.
For any initiated amendment petition, no signature may be obtained more than twenty-four months preceding the general election that was designated at the time of filing of the full text. A sworn affidavit, signed by at least two-thirds of the petition sponsors, stating that the documents filed constitute the entire petition and to the best of the knowledge of the sponsors contains a sufficient number of signatures, must also be filed with the secretary of state. The initiated amendment petition signatures must be filed with the secretary of state by the first Tuesday in May of a general election year for the initiated amendment to qualify for submission to the voters at the next general election. The State Board of Elections shall prescribe the form of the affidavit and the petition otherwise, including petition size and petition font size for ballot measure language not prescribed in this section.
SDCL 2-1-1.1