North Dakota 2018 ballot measures

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Four statewide ballot measures were certified to appear on the ballot in North Dakota on November 6, 2018.

HIGHLIGHTS

Measure 1 was approved. It established an ethics commission, banned foreign political contributions, and enacted provisions related to lobbying and conflicts of interest.

Measure 2 was also approved. It amended language in the constitution to state that only U.S. citizens and North Dakota residents can vote in federal, state, local, or school elections.

Measure 3 was defeated. It would have removed marijuana and other products from the list of controlled substances and provided for automatic expungement of convictions from legalized controlled substances.

Measure 4 was approved. It provided personalized license plates for volunteer emergency responders and free access to state parks.

On the ballot

Type	Title	Subject	Description	Result
CICA	Measure 1	Elections and Gov. accountability	Establishes an ethics commission, bans foreign political contributions, and enacts provisions related to lobbying and conflicts of interest	a
CICA	Measure 2	Suffrage	Clarifies that only U.S. citizens and North Dakota residents can vote in federal, state, local, or school elections	a
CISS	Measure 3	Marijuana	Removes marijuana and other products from list of controlled substances and provides for automatic expungement of convictions from legalized controlled substances	d
CISS	Measure 4	Civil service and Parks	Requires free access to state parks and personalized license plates for volunteer emergency responders	a

Getting measures on the ballot

North Dakota allows citizen initiatives in the form of initiated state statutes, initiated constitutional amendments and veto referendums. North Dakota petition signature requirements are determined by calculating 2 percent of the most recent census population of the state for veto referendums and initiated statutes, and 4 percent of the census population for initiated amendments. Supporters had to submit 26,904 valid signatures by July 9, 2018, in order to qualify initiated constitutional amendments for the 2018 ballot, and 13,452 signatures were required to qualify initiated state statutes and veto referendums.

The North Dakota Legislature has the power to place constitutional amendments on the ballot when a majority of members in each house of the legislature approve the amendment. Once on the ballot, the amendment must be approved by a simple majority of the electors. The legislature only convenes legislative sessions during odd-numbered years, and the 2017 session ran from January 3, 2017, to April 27, 2017.

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Historical facts

See also: History of Initiative & Referendum in North Dakota and List of North Dakota ballot measures

• A total of 67 measures appeared on statewide ballots in North Dakota from 1996 to 2016.
• From 1996 to 2016, the number of measures on statewide ballots during even-numbered years ranged from two to 15.
• Between 1996 and 2016, an average of six measures appeared on the ballot in North Dakota during even-numbered election years.
• Between 1996 and 2016, about 55 percent (37 of 67) of the total number of measures that appeared on statewide ballots were approved, and about 45 percent (30 of 67) were defeated.

Summary of campaign contributions

See also: Ballot measure campaign finance, 2018

The following chart illustrates how much support and opposition committees had amassed in campaign contributions for each measure on the ballot:

Ballot Measure:	Support contributions:	Opposition contributions:	Outcome:
North Dakota Measure 1	$1,021,899.17	$486,600.00	a
North Dakota Measure 2	$303,357.00	$0.00	a
North Dakota Measure 3	$91,345.09	$297,257.86	d
North Dakota Measure 4	$2,572.40	$0.00	a

Cost per required signature

See also: Ballot measure signature costs, 2018

The cost-per-required signature (CPRS) is a comparison of the amount of money spent on the petition drive to the number of signatures the state requires for an initiative to make the ballot. The following chart illustrates the CPRS for ballot initiatives.

A total of $508,857 was spent on the successful initiative petition drives in North Dakota in 2018. It was all spent on Measure 1 and Measure 2; Ballotpedia was not able to identify spending on the signature petition drives for Measure 3 and Measure 4.

Ballot Measure:	Topic:	Petition company	Cost	Signatures	CPRS
North Dakota Measure 1	Elections and campaigns	Advanced Micro Targeting	$260,000.00	26,904	$9.66
North Dakota Measure 2	Suffrage	Advanced Micro Targeting	$248,857.00	26,904	$9.25
North Dakota Measure 3	Marijuana		$0.00	13,452	$0.00
North Dakota Measure 4	Civil service		$0.00	13,452	$0.00
Averages:	N/A	Advanced Micro Targeting	$127,214	N/A	$4.73

Not on the ballot

See also: Proposed ballot measures that were not on a ballot

Type	Title	Subject	Description	Result
CISS	Marijuana Legalization Initiative	Marijuana	Legalizes the possession and use of marijuana
CISS	Repeal Sunday Retail Closing Law Initiative	Business	Repeals law prohibiting certain sales between midnight and noon on Sundays
CISS	Minimum Wage Increase Initiative	Minimum wage	Increases the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour by 2021

State profile

This excerpt is reprinted here with the permission of the 2016 edition of the Almanac of American Politics and is up to date as of the publication date of that edition. All text is reproduced verbatim, though links have been added by Ballotpedia staff. To read the full chapter on North Dakota, click here.

For a state that is one of the most remote in the Lower 48, North Dakota has been much in the news recently – first for a shale-oil boom that, at least for a while, transformed the western part of the state, and then for protests by Native Americans against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Amid the ferment and turmoil, North Dakota was strengthening its already solid Republican leanings.

In late 1804, members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition paddled up the Missouri River and reached what is now North Dakota. The explorers bivouacked for the winter across the river from where the state capital of Bismarck now stands, and spent 146 nights in North Dakota. On the Lewis and Clark Trail, you can still see traces of the pristine landscape the expedition encountered - a vast unfenced land where the Indians built a civilization based on the buffalo and the horse, a Spanish import. Less than a hundred years later, railroads crisscrossed the prairie and the Sioux were herded onto reservations; it...(read more)

Demographic data for North Dakota
	North Dakota	U.S.
Total population:	756,835	316,515,021
Land area (sq mi):	69,001	3,531,905
Gender
Female:	49%	50.8%
Race and ethnicity**
White:	88.7%	73.6%
Black/African American:	1.6%	12.6%
Asian:	1.2%	5.1%
Native American:	5.3%	0.8%
Pacific Islander:	0%	0.2%
Two or more:	2.2%	3%
Hispanic/Latino:	2.9%	17.1%
Education
High school graduation rate:	91.7%	86.7%
College graduation rate:	27.7%	29.8%
Income
Median household income:	$57,181	$53,889
Persons below poverty level:	12.2%	11.3%
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, "American Community Survey" (5-year estimates 2010-2015) **Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.

Presidential voting pattern

See also: Presidential voting trends in North Dakota

North Dakota voted Republican in all five presidential elections between 2000 and 2016.

Pivot Counties (2016)

Ballotpedia identified 206 counties that voted for Donald Trump (R) in 2016 after voting for Barack Obama (D) in 2008 and 2012. Collectively, Trump won these Pivot Counties by more than 580,000 votes. Of these 206 counties, four are located in North Dakota, accounting for 1.94 percent of the total pivot counties.

More North Dakota coverage on Ballotpedia

• Elections in North Dakota
• United States congressional delegations from North Dakota
• Public policy in North Dakota
• Influencers in North Dakota
• North Dakota fact checks
• More...

See also

• 2018 ballot measures
• List of North Dakota ballot measures
• Laws governing the initiative process in North Dakota
• North Dakota Legislature