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skipped campaigning in South Dakota to focus on states with more electoral votes.
• A minimum of 270 electoral votes is needed to win.
•
•

• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- Thousands of people voted across South Dakota on Tuesday for president, U.S. House and various ballot initiatives. Here's what they said about why they cast their votes:
• -- "I think we need change," said Brian Sather, 63, a Sioux Falls dentist who voted for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
• -- "There's nobody to vote for. I'd have voted for Mickey Mouse," said Russell Olson, 48, a Sioux Falls brewery owner who voted for Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson.
• -- "It's hard to lose a job, especially a job you loved," said Feras Derany, 30, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Syria and Sioux Falls resident who has been laid off. He said he voted for Romney because he thinks fewer jobs would be shipped overseas with Romney as president.
• -- "It's good to get them in the habit of voting," said Brendan Johnson, the U.S. attorney for South Dakota, who brought his 6-year-old and 9-year-old sons to the polling site he voted at and said his wife planned to take the boys with her when she voted later in the day.
• -- "He's smart. Obama wasn't handed anything great, but the country can't keep going like this," said Jan Fisher, 54, who works with the disabled in Sioux Falls and voted for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
• -- "I like what the president is doing. I don't like Romney's ideas on taxes," said Chris Dorhout, 24, a book seller in Sioux Falls who voted for President Barack Obama.
• -- "Everything is gridlocked, and we need to break the gridlock," said Gary Hohn, 61, a retired sales manager from Sioux Falls who voted for Matt Varilek, the Democratic challenger to incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem.
• -- "I'm a Republican at heart, and I like the policies they hold," said Kathy Tucker, 62, a teacher from Sioux Falls.
• -- "It don't matter who wins, it's not going to get any better," said Dan Olsen, 31, who works at Walmart in Sioux Falls. Olsen declined to say who he voted for but said he felt it was his duty to cast his ballot. "What are you going to complain about if you don't vote?"

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