Student Voting Guide | North Dakota

Registration

http://www.nd.gov/sos/electvote/

North Dakota is the only state in the nation that does not have voter registration.[1]  You simply need to show up at the polls or apply for an absentee ballot and comply with the ID requirements described below.  You may vote in a primary election if you will be 18 by the next general election.[2]

Residency

At School. Students attending school in North Dakota should be able to establish residency and vote at their school address if they intend to make their college towns their residence and do not intend to return back home after school.[3]  The North Dakota Constitution requires voters to be residents of the state,[4] and North Dakota law requires that you reside in the precinct where you wish to vote for thirty days prior to the election.[5]  A voter may only have one residence, which is “an actual fixed permanent dwelling.”[6]

At Home. Students who lived in North Dakota before moving elsewhere to attend school, and who wish to establish or keep their North Dakota voting residency (i.e., at their parents’ North Dakota address), should have no problem doing so unless they have already registered to vote in another state.  Like all states, North Dakota allows students to keep their voting residency even if they move out of the district to attend school, and the only way you will lose this residency is by establishing residency in a new state.  While registering to vote in another state is not automatically considered an abandonment of your North Dakota residency, some judges or officials might view it as such.

Challenges to Residency. Your eligibility to vote can be challenged at the polls by poll workers or by partisan challengers.[7]  Even if your eligibility is challenged, you can still swear out an affidavit and vote.[8] 

Identification

At the polls, you will be asked to show identification with your address on it.[9]  Valid forms of ID are: a North Dakota driver’s license or non-driver’s ID card; a U.S. passport; an ID card from a federal agency; an ID card issued by a tribal government; a valid student ID; a military ID card; a utility bill dated within thirty days of Election Day, including cell phone bills and student housing bills (online printouts are okay); and a change of address verification letter from the U.S. Post Office.[10]

Even if you do not have ID, if a poll worker knows you, they can vouch for you if you supply your date of birth.[11]  Otherwise, you can swear out a Voter’s Affidavit (described above) and still vote.[12]

Absentee

http://www.nd.gov/eforms/Doc/sfn51468.pdf

All voters are allowed to vote absentee in North Dakota.[13]  There is no deadline for applying for a ballot, but you must apply early enough so that you can receive, complete, and mail the absentee ballot back to the county auditor’s office before Election Day.[14]  Blank applications are available on the web site of the Secretary of State at the link above.  If you mail it in, the absentee ballot must be postmarked by the day before the election.[15]  Neither your application nor your ballot needs to be witnessed.

Early Voting

As a convenience to voters, North Dakota has early voting beginning on 15 days before an election and ending on Election Day.[16]  At early voting sites, you can vote any precinct’s ballot for that county.  If you do not consider your school address to be your permanent address, or if you have not changed your residence yet, then early voting provides an opportunity to vote a ballot at the residence from which you are absent.

 

 

Last Updated in April 2010

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[1] See N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-01-05.1 (“The procedure provided for in this section may not be used to require the registration of electors.”).

[2] FairVote “Voting Age and Registration,” available at http://www.fairvote.org/youth-preregistration-fact-sheet.

[3] See 1971 Op. Atty. Gen. N.D. No. 71-143 (1971 N.D. AG LEXIS 11).

[4] N.D. Const. Art. II, § 1.

[5] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-01-04(1) (2009).

[6] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-01-04(2).

[7] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-05-06(2).

[8] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-05-06(3) (2009).

[9] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-05-07(1).

[10] http://www.nd.gov/hava/education/doc/id-requirements.pdf; Interview with Leann Oliver (Apr. 16, 2008).

[11] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-05-07(2) (2009).

[12] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-05-07(3).

[13] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-07-01(1).

[14] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-07-05(6) (2009).

[15] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-07-09.

[16] N.D. Cent. Code § 16.1-07-05.