On September 7, the North Dakota Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in Hendrix v Jaeger, 2022 ND 168. Here is the Opinion. The ruling restores a statewide term limits initiative to the ballot.

The initiative concerns term limits for the legislature and the Governor. It needed 31,164 signatures, and proponents submitted 46,366 signatures. But the Secretary of State invalidated the petition. The Secretary rejected all the sheets notarized by one particular Notary Public, which put it below the requirement. The Secretary of State invalidated all those sheets because the Secretary of State believed that the Notary had notarized several sheets allegedly signed by the same circulator, yet on those several sheets, the signature of the circulator varied widely from one sheet to the next.

The Supreme Court reviewed many somewhat similar cases from other state courts, and found that those other precedents all rejected the concept of rejecting all the signatures handled by one particular notary, just because it appeared the notary had notarized one or a few particular sheets that should not have been considered valid.