North Dakota Statutes § 16.1-01-09.1 Recall petitions - Signature - Form - Circulation

1. A request of the secretary of state for approval of a petition to recall an elected official or appointed official of a vacated elected office may be presented over the signatures of the sponsoring committee on individual signature forms that have been notarized. The secretary of state shall prepare a signature form that includes provisions for identification of the recall; the printed name, signature, and address of the committee member; and notarization of the signature. The filed signature forms must be originals. The secretary of state shall complete the review of the form of a recall petition in not less than five, nor more than seven, business days, excluding Saturdays.

2. An individual may not sign a recall petition circulated pursuant to article III of the Constitution of North Dakota or section 44-08-21 unless the individual is a qualified elector. An individual may not sign a petition more than once, and each signer shall also legibly print the signer's name, complete residential, rural route, or general delivery address, and the date of signing on the petition. Every qualified elector signing a petition must do so in the presence of the individual circulating the petition. A petition must be in substantially the following form:

3. Each copy of a petition provided for in this section, before being filed, must have attached an affidavit executed by the circulator in substantially the following form:

4. A petition for recall must include, before the signature lines for the qualified electors as provided in subsection 2, the name of the individual being recalled, the office from which that individual is being recalled, and a list of the names and addresses of not less than five qualified electors of the state, political subdivision, or district in which the official is to be recalled who are sponsoring the recall.

5. For the recall of an elected official under article III of the Constitution of North Dakota, circulators have one year to gather the required number of signatures of qualified electors on the recall petition from the date the secretary of state approves the recall petition for circulation. For the recall of an elected official under section 44-08-21 , circulators have ninety days from the date the secretary of state approves the recall petition for circulation to submit the recall petition to the appropriate filing officer.

6. A petition may not be circulated under the authority of article III of the Constitution of North Dakota or section 44-08-21 by an individual who is less than eighteen years of age, nor may the affidavit called for by subsection 3 be executed by an individual who is less than eighteen years of age at the time of signing. All petitions circulated under the authority of the constitution and of this section must be circulated in their entirety.

7. When recall petitions are delivered to the secretary of state or other filing officer with whom a petition for nomination to the office in question is filed, the chairman of the sponsoring committee shall submit to the secretary of state or other filing officer an affidavit stating that to the best of that individual's knowledge, the petitions contain at least the required number of signatures. The chairperson also shall submit a complete list of petition circulators which must include each circulator's full name and residential address. The residential address must be in this state and identify the circulator's street address, city, and zip code. Upon submission of the petitions to the appropriate filing officer, the petitions are considered filed and may not be returned to the chairman of the sponsoring committee for the purpose of continuing the circulation process or resubmitting the petitions at a later time. An elector's name may not be removed by the elector from a recall petition that has been submitted to and received by the appropriate filing officer.

8. The filing officer has a reasonable period, not to exceed thirty days, in which to pass upon the sufficiency of a recall petition. The filing officer may conduct a representative random sampling of the signatures contained in the petitions by the use of questionnaires, postcards, telephone calls, personal interviews, or other accepted information-gathering techniques, or any combinations thereof, to determine the validity of the signatures. Signatures determined by the filing officer to be invalid may not be counted and all violations of law discovered by the filing officer must be reported to the state's attorney for possible prosecution.

9. The filing officer shall call a special recall election to be held no sooner than ninety-five days nor later than one hundred five days following the date the filing officer certifies the petition valid and sufficient. No special recall election may be called if that date would be within ninety-five days of the next scheduled election.

10. A notice of the recall election must be posted in the official newspaper thirty days before the candidate filing deadline, which is by four p.m. on the sixty-fourth day before the election. The official notice must include the necessary information for a candidate to file and have the candidate's name included on the ballot.

11. An official may not be recalled if the recall special election would occur within one year of the next regularly scheduled election in which the official could be re-elected.