Frustration. That best describes my feeling about the vote on RL 21 (formerly known as Senate bill 201).
There are many TV ads telling us about all the great things RL 21 will do for South Dakota. They play them over and over again, and seem to promise everything to South Dakota and the farmers. They even have farmers in the ads. Those ads cost a lot of money.
On the other side of the issue are many small yellow signs and painted round hay bales throughout the country side that have been placed by the farmers themselves that say vote no. The yellow signs are $5 apiece and the round bale messages take a can of spray paint. Farmers cannot compete with large corporations when it comes to money.
Farmers are relying heavily on word of mouth to convince voters to vote no. But now the deceptive ads have confused many people on how to vote. I get calls and texts daily. They know what they want to vote, but does yes mean no, or does no mean yes? And they really do care.
Frustration. This is a very complicated law and difficult to understand. Just know that if you want to vote with the common South Dakota farmer, please vote no. If you don’t know, vote no! Just take a ride through the country side.
-Kay Burkhart, Valley Springs
