N.D. secretary of state warns against lex ballot measure petition handling
January 30, 2012 at 1:01 am in Grand Forks Herald
Al Jaeger says he’s heard reports of petitions being left unattended for people to sign. Jaeger says that’s against the law, and signatures on those petitions may not be counted. Right now four petitions are being circulated, including two that relate to the University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux nickname. Continue Reading
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http://www.nd.gov/sos/forms/pdf/initiating.pdf
2011 – 2012 Initiating and Referring Law in North Dakota
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2011-2012 Initiating and Referring A Law in North Dakota page 5
SPONSORING COMMITTEE AFFIDAVITS: All sponsoring committee members must complete an
affidavit, also known as a Signature Form (see page 16). The affidavit is a statement by the
sponsoring committee member that the member is a qualified North Dakota voter and has agreed to be
on the sponsoring committee. The form must be notarized.
Caution: Sponsoring committee members may not notarize the affidavit of other committee
members; husbands and wives may not notarize each other’s signatures. The names and
addresses of the sponsoring committee members on the front page of the petition must match
exactly with the names and addresses found on the affidavits. The signed name on the
affidavit, if different than the printed name, should be used on the petition.
SUBMISSION OF PETITION TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE – DEADLINES: The final draft of the
petition, along with the completed sponsoring committee affidavits, will be submitted to the Secretary of
State. The Secretary of State and the Attorney General have five to seven business days (excluding
Saturdays) to draft a petition title and approve the petition for style and legal form. The petition title is a
short statement to be included on the petition which must fairly represent the substance of the proposed
change or addition. Please note that the Secretary of State suggests the petition title to be printed on
each petition in a legible font size equal to at least 12 point. Once the petition title and petition are
approved, the petition circulators may begin gathering signatures.
When referring legislation passed by the legislature, the referral petition draft should be submitted as
soon as possible after the legislation is filed with the Secretary of State. North Dakota law provides
petitioners up to 90 days after the legislation is filed with the Secretary of State to collect and file the
required number of signatures.
GATHERING SIGNATURES
AMOUNT REQUIRED: Petition signature requirements are based on the percentage of the resident
population of the state of North Dakota at the last federal decennial census. According to 2010 census
figures, the population of North Dakota was 672,591.
Therefore, the percentages and signature requirements are as follows:
Referral Petition 2% of 672,591 13,452
Statutory Initiative 2% of 672,591 13,452
Constitutional Initiative 4% of 672,591 26,904
Past petition sponsors have gathered several hundred to several thousand additional signatures beyond
the required amounts to ensure that the signature requirement will be met after invalid and/or duplicate
signatures are rejected during the review process.
WHO CAN CIRCULATE AND SIGN PETITIONS: Petition circulators and signers must be qualified
voters of the area affected by the petition. Petition circulators may begin gathering signatures after the
petition has been approved by the Secretary of State. Petition circulators must be qualified North
Dakota voters and must sign an affidavit attached at the end of the petition (see pages 14, 19 and 22 for
examples of Circulator Affidavits) affirming those persons who signed the petition did so in the presence
of the circulator and to the best of the circulator’s knowledge, each person who signed the petition is a
qualified North Dakota voter.
Although petition circulators may be accompanied by others who may not be qualified voters of the
state of North Dakota, petitions must remain in the physical possession of circulators who are qualified
North Dakota voters.
Caution: Sponsoring committee members may not notarize a circulator’s affidavit. Doing so
will disqualify all the signatures on that single petition copy.
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