Thursday, November 8, 2012

Insulting SD Voters

Governor Daugaard's reaction to the defeated ballot issues is beyond insulting to SD voters. Here is what the Governor said on KELO-TV on November 7th:

"I think it showed a little voter fatigue on the ballot when you have that many measures, some with great complexity. It's bound to happen," Daugaard said.

Daugaard believes the ballots were long and issues too complex so by the time voters got to the back side of the ballot, they were in a hurry and the mood to vote "no."

"The voters don't have time to dig into and understand the facts that bare upon an informed decision and so when voters don't have that time then most are included to say, 'Well, I don't have time to dig into this and so I'm going to vote no," Daugaard said.

The state sales tax increase to send money to schools and medicaid programs was rejected by the voters. Governor Daugaard's education reform law was rejected by the voters. The economic incentive program requested to the legislature by Governor Daugaard was rejected by the voters.

These comments indicate the Governor is totally out of touch with reality when it comes to his constituents. The complete disregard for the intelligence of SD voters and their ability to understand the issues is mind boggling. Instead of insulting all those "ignorant" voters, maybe the Governor needs to take a more reflective attitude on why these measures failed by a margin of two to one.

Pure and simple, the voters did not agree with him or legislature on these issues and the voters said so in a resounding no. This Governor is obviously tone deaf to the voters in SD and that is a dangerous thing. His complete disregard for the voice of the voter is disturbing. His lack of being able to look inward to assess why the voters said no to these issues is disturbing. Sour grapes, pure and simple. Insult when you don't have a competent thought or valid self reflection on why something has happened.

Who does he think he is representing anyway? He is not in office for himself. He is in office to serve us, the voters. This is not a monarchy and he is not king. This is a democracy whereby the elected officials serve the general voting public not themselves or their particular ideology. Clearly, he has forgotten that by insulting SD voters and not taking responsibility as the state's leader for why these measures were voted down. They were voted down because the voters did not like them and did not agree with them, not because they didn't understand them or were uninformed.

4 comments:

  1. I AM a well-informed voter, and I DO find his comments insulting!

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  2. THUMBS UP, Jennifer! I studied and researched these ballot items. Brought all of my analytical PhD thought process to the fore. And voted NO. Sorry, Gov'nur.

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  3. Let me fix something for you mr, guvner. From your statement.

    "The voters don't have time to dig into and understand the facts that bare upon an informed decision and so when voters don't have that time then most are included to say, 'Well, I don't have time to dig into this and so I'm going to vote daugaard," Daugaard said.

    Poly Amalo

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  4. I am going to be devil's advocate here. Yes - most of us that read this blog or any other intelligent blog happen to be people that are for the most part, well-informed. Then there is the rest of SD and I do not mean this to be disrespectful, but Jennifer and everyone else, you know who I am talking about and this state does have a lot of "ignorant" voters. We have no idea what contacts were made with the Governor stating this very fact - these ballot issues were over their head - which to a point - I can understand. Most of them were multi-faceted and meant something different to everyone that viewed them. Quite honestly, I did study them and still found myself taking more time than I had thought when voting. There is a good chance that many conveyed to him that they were too complicated - and to a point - they were. I, personally, do not agree with the way the statement was made, however, as a state, we do tend to have voters that do not always take the time to educate themselves. With these ballot issues, if you did not do that, you probably had no business voting to begin with.

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