North Dakota Code 16.1-06-09 – Constitutional amendments and initiated and referred measures – Manner of stating question – Fiscal impact statement – Explanation of effect of vote – Order of listing
1. Constitutional amendments or measures, initiated measures, and referred measures, duly certified to the county auditor by the secretary of state, or any other question or measure to be voted on, except the election of public officers at any primary, general, or special election including officers subject to a recall petition, must, unless otherwise determined by the secretary of state, be stated in full in a legible manner on the ballot. If the secretary of state concludes the amendment or measure is too long to make it practicable to print in full, the secretary of state in consultation with the attorney general shall cause to be printed a concise summary written in plain, clear, understandable language using words with common, everyday meaning which must fairly represent the substance of the constitutional amendment or initiated or referred measure. After the foregoing statement, the secretary of state shall cause to be printed a statement of the estimated fiscal impact of the constitutional amendment or initiated or referred measure and a concise statement of the effect of an affirmative or negative vote on the constitutional amendment or initiated or referred measure written in plain, clear, understandable language using words with common, everyday meaning. This explanatory statement must be drafted by the secretary of state in consultation with the attorney general. The words “Yes” and “No” must be printed on the ballot at the close of the statement regarding the effect of an affirmative or negative vote, in separate lines with an oval before each statement in which the voter is to indicate how the voter desires to vote on the question by darkening the oval. If two or more amendments or questions are to be voted on, they must be printed on the same ballot.
Terms Used In North Dakota Code 16.1-06-09
- Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
- Ballot: means a paper ballot from which the votes for candidates and questions are tabulated by hand or by a voting system. See North Dakota Code 16.1-06-12
- State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
- written: include "typewriting" and "typewritten" and "printing" and "printed" except in the case of signatures and when the words are used by way of contrast to typewriting and printing. See North Dakota Code 1-01-37
2. The measures to be submitted to the electors must be grouped and classified as constitutional measures, initiated statutes, or referred statutes and must be placed within such groups or classifications by the secretary of state in the order received, for the purpose of placing them on the ballot. Measures submitted by the legislative assembly must be placed first on the ballot within their classification in the order approved by the legislative assembly. Constitutional measures shall be placed first on the ballot, initiated statutes second, and referred statutes third. After all the measures have been placed within the appropriate group or classification, all measures must be numbered consecutively, without regard to the various groups or classifications.