Gene Nygaard, Crosby

Secretary of State Al Jaeger:

Secretary of State Elections Unit:

Divide County Auditor Gayle Jastrzebski:

I received my ballot in the mail today, 28 September. I want to register a complaint about your claims that we could vote absentee starting 24 September. We can’t vote if we don’t have the ballot.

But furthermore, and primarily, I want to register a strong complaint about serious, deliberate and intentional lying on the Instructions to Vote by Mail printed on the back of the ballot envelope, which says as you can see in the scan attached:

4. Affix the proper postage before mailing-extra postage is required.

No, extra postage is not required. I’ll be charitable and say that it might have been an oversight when the same language appeared on the primary election envelopes. However, since I know that I complained to you about that at the time, and it has not been corrected, it is no longer an oversight on your part. It is now a deliberate and intentional lie.

The dimensions of the envelope are clearly within the U.S.P.S. parameters which do not require additional postage. You could easily verify that with a ruler. You know from what I told you last time that the single 8¢x14 ballot page, the ballot security envelope, and the outer envelope with Voter Affidavit are less than one ounce. That is something you could easily verify with a scale, or take it to the post office like I did where they told me it was 0.9 ounce. So it does not require extra postage because of weight either. IIRC, the primary election ballot was 3 inches longer and therefore that sheet was about 20% heavier than this one.

No extra postage is required. That lie is just one more impediment you are trying to throw in front of voters to make it more difficult for them to vote by mail. You made an explicit statement that extra postage “is required” and it is not.

I now ask that you make a correction with a press release and with an official declaration on your vote.nd.gov page stating that the claim in those voting instructions that additional postage is required for mailing of the 2020 General Election ballots is false.