BISMARCK — Voters will get to decide whether to impose term limits on the governor and legislators when they go to the polls on Nov. 8.

The North Dakota Supreme Court has ordered a term limits measure be placed on the November ballot after supporters argued many of their petitions were wrongfully rejected by Secretary of State Al Jaeger in March.

The Supreme Court found that Jaeger “misapplied the law” when he determined that a pattern of notary violations on some petitions justified invalidating all the petitions sworn before the same notary, according to the Associated Press. The high court reversed a state district court judge who last month found that Jaeger’s rejection of the measure was done properly.

Backers of the petition submitted more than 46,000 signatures, and Jaeger’s rejection of about 29,000 left them far short of the 31,164 signatures needed to get on the ballot.

“We always knew that our committee had complied fully with state law and submitted more than enough signatures to the Secretary of State,” said Jared Hendrix of Minot, chairman of the North Dakota Term Limits sponsoring committee. “We are grateful that truth and the rule of law prevailed in the N.D. Supreme Court’s decision today. This is a big win for not only the term limits initiative itself, but the Powers Reserved to the People under the North Dakota state constitution.”

In the opinion, the court wrote, “The Secretary of State acknowledged his office has never before invalidated all petitions from a single notary, and he cited no authority from any jurisdiction in which a class of documents relating to a notary had been invalidated as a result of notarial fraud or other misconduct. Our research, both inside and outside the election context, has revealed no precedent supporting invalidation of a class of documents notarized by an individual notary on the basis of imputing fraud relating to some of the documents.”

The invalidation of those notarized petitions had disqualified 15,740 signatures.

The court’s decision means North Dakota residents will be able to vote on applying a limit of two four-year terms to the North Dakota governor, State House and State Senate.

In rejecting the petitions, Jaeger also had cited alleged irregularities, including handwriting discrepancies and illegal bonuses paid to petition circulators per signature. He referred the matter to the Attorney General’s Office for investigation, and Attorney General Drew Wrigley turned the it over to the Ward County State’s Attorney’s Office for potential prosecution.