Entries for November 17, 2006

South Dakota's voters rejected a ban on abortions passed by the Republican legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Mike Rounds. The margin was 56 to 44 percent. The results in smaller counties were mixed; voters in Minnehaha County (Sioux Falls) voted 57 percent against the ban, while voters in Pennington County (Rapid City), ordinarily more Republican but perhaps also more libertarian, voted 61 percent against. Those two counties provided almost half the popular vote margin against the ban (17,530 of 37,270).