North Dakota held its primary elections on June 9, 2026. Now, four Republican legislative candidates who lost their primaries are suing, arguing that their opponents’ petitions to get on the primary ballot were not valid. See this story. The case is in the State Supreme Court.
Why did they wait so long?
Perhaps to prevent even the tiniest chance that they might actually get injunctive relief?
@Q,
They did not anticipate losing in the primary, and it took them a while to find an attorney willing to make their audacious claims.
In North Dakota party conventions can endorse candidates, but challengers can petition on to the primary ballot. In one case, the candidates or their agents filled in the “ND” on the addresses after the petition had first been submitted. North Dakota does not have voter registration, so a voter’s name and address identify them. The circulator can apparently fill in everything but the signature, but it is supposed to happen in front of the voter. So on some sheets the address read, “123 Moose Jaw Lane, Minot, 58701.” Looking at the submitted brief, it appears that the addresses might have been filled in by at least some signers, since the handwriting appears to be different. On some sheets, one voter would leave off the “ND” following “Minot” and everyone who followed would also leave it off. If you lived in Minot, and told someone that you lived in Minot, they would probably guess that you meant Minot, ND. It appears that in Minot, that there is a directional on the end of addresses (e.g. “SE”) which may or may not be significant in getting your mail delivered. Some signers left it off.
The SOS told the candidates to fill in the “ND” and “SE” and they did, making no attempt to hide the insertion. But the voter did not actually confirm that they lived in “Minot, ND”
In two other cases, the petition did not bear any indication it was for the Republican primary. There might be different forms, I don’t know. But the affidavit of candidacy did indicate that it was for a Republican – but it was executed before a notary after the petition had been circulated, so the signers “might” not have known it was a Republican candidate.
The plaintiff’s were apparently involved in a petition drive that failed to call a special election.
In another case a candidate circulated a petition saying that she sought to be a “legislator”. In North Dakota, senators and representatives run from the same districts (i.e., like in Arizona and Washington), so “legislator” is meaningless – and conceivably be used by a candidate who had not decided whether they were running for the Senate or the House. But the candidate had allegedly handed out rack cards stating she was running for the House.
The plaintiff’s are not making claims as failed legislative candidates, but rather as ordinary aggrieved citizens, injured by disparate treatment by the SOS in administering the election code (i.e. an equal protections claim). In North Dakota, political parties can fill legislative vacancies, including those where the winning candidate failed to qualify, such as death prior to the election. If the allegedly false Republican candidates are elected, then the Republican Party can fill the vacancy or so the plaintiffs claim.
Doesn’t the zip code confirm that its Minot ND? How many Minots are there, anyway?
They should have looked at the hospitals around the emergency room ambulance entrances
Or just looked for ambulances with emergency lights on while out and about driving and followed those, particularly if coming from the scene of a wreck
@Q,
The demonym for residents of Minot is Minoter. The city is pronounced MY-not. Though the name looks French, and the city is about 50 miles from the Canadian border it has an English pronunciation. The city is named after after an investor in the Great Northern Railroad and friend of Jim Hill. The Minot family name had migrated to England as part of the Norman Conquest and anglicized prior to migration to American in the 1600’s.
There are four Minot’s in the United States. Minot, Maine is a suburb of Lewiston. Minot, Massachusetts is located in the town of Scituate. It does have its own post office and zip code. Minot, Mississippi is a former small railroad stop.
Legislative districts in North Dakota are relatively small (16,576), and Ward County (county seat Minot) had four whole districts and part of two others. About 3/4 of the county population is in the city of Minot, and other than Minot AFB most of the county is low density agricultural land, with a scattering of small towns. So there are four legislative districts substantially in the city of Minot. If you look at a map of North Dakota, there is a tiny little circle which would give an impression of being the location of the city, but three other districts are largely in the city with rural areas attached. There are two primary zip codes for Minot: 58701 and 58703, so in a particular legislative district, one or the other may predominate.
Because North Dakota does not have voter registration, addresses on petitions may be particularly important. It would be unremarkable if when checking petitions, election officials simply key in the address. In other states a garbled address might be overlooked. North Dakota assigns location coordinates for areas that do not have conventional street addresses for 911 purposes. These locations apparently are on driver’s licenses and used for voter identification. In the Minot case under litigation, the SOS apparently drew circles around missing locations information and gave the petitions back to the candidate to fill in “ND”, or “SE” (in Minot, a quadrant NW, NE, SE, SW is part of the address since most streets and avenues are numbered. It appears a few people also omitted their zip code.
It appears that a petition can be circulated after the primary. The lawsuit claims that procedural deficiencies can not be cured by getting the most votes. This might or might not be good law.
In North Dakota there is a factional dispute between conventional politicians who are concerned with things like plowing the roads after a blizzard, and populists who want to fight social issues. The current state leadership, including the governor boycotted the state convention and petitioned to get on the primary ballot. The governor personally contributed to the candidates whose nomination is now being challenged.
None of the other Minots have the same zip code as Minot, ND, correct?