FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jared Hendrix
Phone: 701-712-1487
libertyhendrix@gmail.com
Bismarck, ND: North Dakota for Term Limits responded to the North Dakota Secretary of State over improperly rejecting valid petitions signed by North Dakota residents. On February 15th, the Secretary of State accepted 46,366 petitions submitted by the term limits committee. This amount far exceeded the 31,164 signatures necessary for an initiative petition to be placed on the ballot.
The proposed ballot measure, if passed by the voters, would add a new article to the North Dakota Constitution imposing term limits for the Governor and members of the Legislature.
On March 22, 2022, the office of Alvin Jaeger, N.D. Secretary of State, unlawfully and unconstitutionally disqualified 29,101 valid petitions. These signatures were submitted with notarized affidavits yet were wrongfully rejected based on various unsubstantiated allegations made by the secretary of state’s office.
The letter, submitted by Graves Garrett LLC and Jesse Walstad of Vogel Law on behalf of the North Dakota term limits committee, contends no factual or legal basis for the Secretary of State to disqualify nearly 63% of the valid signatures submitted.
“One of the fundamental rights of our democracy is the ability for residents to participate in a citizens’ initiative to place important measures on the ballot so the voters may decide,” said Jared Hendrix, chair of North Dakota for Term Limits. He continued, “The secretary of state is charged with protecting the rights of North Dakota voters yet has purposefully and unlawfully denied residents the ability to place term limits on the November 2022 ballot.”
The letter claims over 40,020 should be accepted as valid and that the illegal wholesale rejection of valid signatures by the office of the secretary of state was deliberately instructed contrary to the established initiative petition sampling process.
The letter submitted to the Secretary of State can be viewed here. More information about the Term Limits ballot initiative is available on the North Dakota for Term Limits website at https://northdakotafortermlimits.com/.