Jill Schramm/MDN Secretary of State Michael Howe, Deputy Secretary Sandra McMerty and Elections Director Erika White, from left, bring an update related to state election laws to The Minot Daily News July 2.

Minot will give a new state law on absentee ballots its first run when it holds its mayoral race Aug. 5.

“A lot of people are interested around the state to see how it goes,” Secretary of State Michael Howe said in Minot last week.

The change to absentee ballots is one of several changes to North Dakota’s election laws made by the 2025 Legislature.

As a result of the change, Minot voters planning to vote absentee for mayor will need to have their ballots to the Ward County Auditor’s Office before polls close on election day. No longer will ballots postmarked before election day but arriving afterwards be counted in North Dakota elections.

Howe explained President Trump signed an executive order stating ballots must arrive before polls close on election day. That put North Dakota’s law in conflict.

“We didn’t want to go into litigation and have that uncertainty heading into the general election, especially in 2026,” he said. “So, we worked with the Legislature and changed the law to match the executive order.”

He added North Dakota’s neighboring states, and most states, already have the poll closure deadline.

The executive order and state law don’t impact military and overseas voters, whose ballots still can be postmarked the day before the election as long as the ballots arrive within 13 days, which is ahead of canvassing board meetings to finalize election results.

In the 2024 general election, North Dakota had 392 mailed ballots arrive after election day, or 0.1% of ballots cast, Howe said. Ward County had 26 ballots arrive after election day.

Howe said getting the message out about the absentee ballot change is imperative to ensuring certain voters aren’t disenfranchised. In addition to messaging going out to alert voters, the absentee envelopes make note of the return deadline.

A positive with the new deadline is absentee ballots can be physically returned to the county auditor’s office or to a drop box on election day until polls close, Howe said. Previously, ballots had to be dropped off no later than the day before the election.

Ward County Auditor Marisa Haman said her office typically has turned away at least a handful of absentee ballots on election day and more are rejected at the polling places.

Polling places still will not be able to accept absentee ballots. However, voters will continue to have the option of discarding their absentee ballots instead of turning them in, and then voting in person.

There will be no early voting in the mayoral election, but voters can stop by the county auditor’s office any day during business hours to fill out a ballot application and receive a ballot to immediately vote.

Haman said voters already have been casting ballots in the city election. Absentee ballots became available June 26.

Other election-related updates made during the past legislative session include:

– Political subdivisions may not use a private entity to administer an election.

– A county auditor may remove an election judge, who is appointed by a political party, if the judge is disqualified from serving for reasons set out in state law.

– The timeline for city bonding elections was moved from 21 days after passage of a city resolution to 64 days to match the timelines of other special elections.

– School and city bonding elections must be placed on a primary or general election ballot and not decided in special elections.

– Candidates for U.S. president must have their full names appear on the ballot, rather than just their last names.

– Schools must have a policy to allow students who are eligible voters to leave campus to vote on election day.

– Candidates, office holders and members of governor-appointed boards are required to file statements of interests annually by Jan. 31, rather than just before elections. The statement of interests was amended to include a list of political subdivisions or agencies of the state to which the person or the person’s spouse sold goods or services in excess of $5,000 in the previous calendar year from an employer, business or trust in which the person or spouse had ownership interest of 10% or more.

– Recall elections will be cancelled if no candidates file by the filing deadline to challenge the office holder being recalled. Recall thresholds for cities, park districts and school boards were adjusted to 35% (formerly 25%) of voters in the most recent election.

– Approval and ranked choice voting methods are prohibited in any election.

– To support uniform elections statewide, election administration powers have been removed from city and county home rule authority, although cities still can set candidate signature thresholds.

Another election change affecting state elections is the requirement for a post-election audit for one polling location selected randomly in each county. The audit must begin on the sixth day following the election and must be concluded no later than the eighth day after the election.

“Along with all the other things we do before and after an election, this was another mechanism to show the public you can trust your election results,” Howe said. “Most states had this process in place already.”

He added the purpose of the audit is to ensure machines are accurately counting votes.

“Our machines are 100% accurate. We know that. We’ve seen that. We test them to 100% accuracy. This is another layer of it – verification of that after the election,” he said.

State Elections Director Erika White said the process will involve a random ballot sampling from a polling location. The election board will manually tally results and those tallies will be verified on the equipment.

“It’s very similar to the recount process,” she said. “We do all of that testing to make sure everything is 100% accurate at the beginning, but there’s no harm in doing it on the back end, too.”

The Legislature also funded a $600,000 Secretary of State initiative to mail educational pamphlets on ballot measures to all voters 45 days before an election. The same information will be posted at polling locations. The state used to send educational mailers but had discontinued the practice in 1987.

Measures placed on the ballot by legislators for voters to weigh in on next year include a June primary measure to limit a citizen-initiated constitutional ballot petition to one subject.

The 2026 general election will feature two measures advanced by the Legislature. One would require approval of 60% of voters to pass constitutional ballot measures and the other would amend the state’ legislative term limits to 16 years, which can be served in one house or split between the House and Senate. Currently, legislators are limited to 16 years but no more than eight years in either house.

Virtual assistance available to

business startups

The North Dakota Secretary of State’s Office has assisted about 25-30 prospective business owners since launching a virtual appointment platform for start-up businesses a month ago, according to the office.

Anyone interested in starting a North Dakota business can schedule a virtual, one-on-one appointment to walk through the processes required by the state, Secretary of State Michael Howe said. Walk-in help also is available, but virtual appointments offer convenience, he said.

Sandra McMerty, deputy Secretary of State, said the office often gets questions about registering trade names, business registration, taxation and workers compensation. The office is looking at possibly creating webinars to address some common topics, she said.

Another goal is to partner with other agencies that offer assistance to small and rural businesses to jointly address concerns people might have when it comes to opening a business, she said.

– Jill Schramm