What Is the History of the Initiative Process in North Dakota?

When a North Dakotan fills in the bubble to vote Yes or No on a ballot measure, they're exercising a power the people of the state have held, in some capacity, since the state was founded in 1889. From 1889 to 1914, the state’s constitution empowered voters to approve or reject amendments, which only the Legislative Assembly could write during those years. 

During the Progressive Era, which spanned from the 1890s to the 1920s, reforms across the country gave people more power over their governments. North Dakota was no exception. In 1914, the state expanded the people’s power to legislate and to amend the constitution by collecting signatures.

From 1914 to 1918, North Dakota had what is known as an “indirect” initiative process for state statutes and amendments. Both statutory initiatives and citizen-initiated amendments had to go through the Legislative Assembly to ultimately pass. The fact that the legislature had a role in the initiative process is what made it “indirect.” 

The pathways to the ballot for statutory measures and amendments differed. For statutes, if voters collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, their proposed law was submitted to the Legislative Assembly. The legislature could adopt the measure, reject it, send it to the people for a vote, or offer a counter proposal. In the case of the Legislative Assembly offering a counter proposal, both the original proposal and the counter would appear on voters’ ballots; in such instances, whichever version received the most votes would win. For amendments, there was an additional step. The process also began with the collection of voters’ signatures. If enough were collected, the additional step kicked in: the people voted on the amendment, and if a majority of them approved it, it would be automatically referred to the Legislative Assembly. Then the Legislative Assembly could adopt the amendment, in which case it would become part of the constitution, or reject it, in which case it would return to the voters for a final vote.

This ungainly “indirect” process was simplified by another amendment in 1918, which eliminated the Legislative Assembly from the process. 1918 is when the initiative process took the form that would be most recognizable to many North Dakotans today. Though it has been tweaked in the 108 years since, North Dakota’s process has been a “direct” one since the 1918 amendment. That is, the people can collect signatures to put a question to change the laws or constitution before voters without intervention from the legislature. 

Put simply, the initiative process—the ability of citizens to write laws and amend the constitution themselves—is something that the people of North Dakota have enjoyed since 1918. And the more fundamental right to vote on constitutional amendments according to majority rule (50% plus one) has existed as long as the state has existed. The process has changed slightly over time—with the most significant changes coming at the beginning of the 20th Century—and the overall trend in response to proposed changes has been for the people to choose to simplify the process and to refuse attempts by the legislature to curtail it. 

This article traces that history from the beginning: where the initiative process comes from, what the constitution actually says, the different paths a measure can take to the ballot, and every serious attempt—successful or not—to change the rules along the way.

What Is Direct Democracy, and How Does the Initiative Process Fit In?

Direct democracy is any system that lets voters make law themselves, without waiting for elected representatives to act. North Dakota's version of it has two main tools: the initiative, which lets citizens propose a new law or constitutional amendment by petition, and the referendum, which lets citizens petition to put a law the Legislative Assembly already passed up for a yes-or-no vote. 

Both tools rest on majority rule: whichever side gets more than 50% of the vote wins. That's true for citizen-initiated measures and for constitutional amendments referred by the Legislative Assembly alike, and it has been true for the entire history of North Dakota's initiative process. A pending 2026 ballot measure would change that for the first time. More on that below.

What Are the Initiative Process's Legal Roots in the North Dakota Constitution?

The initiative and referendum process lives in Article III of the North Dakota Constitution, titled "Powers Reserved to the People." Its opening line makes the scope of the power clear: while lawmaking authority sits with the Legislative Assembly, the people keep the right to propose and enact laws by initiative, approve or reject legislative acts by referendum, and propose and adopt constitutional amendments by initiative (North Dakota Constitution, Article III text). Article III is "self-executing," meaning it doesn't need a separate law to take effect, and the constitution instructs lawmakers to make rules that support the process rather than restrict it.

A few provisions matter most for how the process actually works:

• Section 2 requires a petition to be approved by the Secretary of State before it can even be circulated, based on a request signed by at least 25 sponsors.
• Section 4 sets the number of signatures required for a statutory initiative to qualify at 2% of the state's population, based on the most recent nationwide census. 
• Section 5 sets the filing deadlines: an initiative petition must be turned in at least 120 days before the election; a referendum petition has only 90 days after a law is signed.
• Section 7 gives the North Dakota Supreme Court original jurisdiction to review the Secretary of State's decisions on a petition—meaning a legal fight over whether a measure qualifies for the ballot goes straight to the state's highest court, not through the lower courts first.
• Section 9 sets the current signature threshold for a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment at 4% of the state's population, based on the last federal census.

That Supreme Court review power is not theoretical. In 2020, the court used it to keep a proposed constitutional amendment off the ballot entirely, ruling it unconstitutional before a single vote was cast (Haugen v. Jaeger, 2020 ND 177). 

Legislatively referred constitutional amendments get their own separate authority, in Article IV, Section 16, which requires only a simple majority vote of the Legislative Assembly, in one session, to put a proposed amendment before voters. Legislatively-referred constitutional amendments can also be subject to the Supreme Court’s review, and the Court has used its authority as recently as this year (2026). In that case (Bjerke, et al. v. North Dakota Legislative Assembly, et al. 2026 ND 118) the Justices ruled unanimously that the Legislative Assembly’s attempt to place an amendment to change their own term limits on the ballot was unconstitutional. The measure would have increased legislators’ term limits had it been allowed to proceed to the ballot and won.

When Did North Dakota Adopt the Initiative Process, and Why?

North Dakota's original 1889 constitution gave the power to amend the constitution to the Legislative Assembly alone. A proposed amendment had to pass both chambers in two separate, consecutive legislative sessions before it even reached voters for a simple-majority ratification vote—and even that wasn't the strictest option on the table. During the 1889 constitutional convention, a delegate named Erastus Williams proposed requiring a two-thirds vote in the Legislative Assembly instead of a simple majority. Delegates rejected it, reasoning that requiring two separate sessions to agree was already a tall enough hurdle (W. Logan Caldwell, North Dakota Law Review, Vol. 97). Between 1889 and 1914, the Legislative Assembly proposed 19 amendments this way and voters adopted 15 of them.

The push for direct democracy began not long after statehood, led by legislators L.A. Ueland and Katherine King starting around 1902. Their proposal to let citizens initiate constitutional amendments passed one legislative session in 1907, failed to clear a second consecutive session in 1909, and succeeded on a second attempt beginning in 1911. North Dakota voters approved the resulting constitutional amendment on November 3, 1914.

That first version of the initiative process, though, kept the Legislative Assembly involved. A citizen petition needed signatures from 25% of voters in at least half the state's counties, and even after voters approved an initiated amendment, it still went back to the Legislative Assembly for a "review vote." Lawmakers could ratify it, and it became law—or reject it, sending it back to voters for one more, final vote.

Reformers called that system unworkable, and it lasted only four years. On November 5, 1918, voters approved a package of changes—driven in large part by the newly formed Nonpartisan League—that eliminated the Legislative Assembly's review vote entirely and replaced the county-based signature rule with flat, statewide numbers. At the same election, all ten constitutional amendments on the ballot passed, and the Legislative Assembly's own threshold for referring future amendments dropped from two legislative sessions to just one—the same simple-majority, one-session rule still in place today.

What Are the Different Pathways to the Ballot in North Dakota?

North Dakota currently allows four distinct types of statewide ballot measures (North Dakota Secretary of State, Types of Ballot Measures)*:

• Legislatively referred constitutional amendment. The Legislative Assembly votes, by simple majority in a single session, to send a proposed constitutional change directly to voters. No governor's signature or citizen petition is required.
• Citizen-initiated constitutional amendment. A petition signed by at least 4% of the state's resident population—31,164 signatures for the 2026 election cycle—puts a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot.**
• Citizen-initiated state statute. A petition signed by at least 2% of the state's population—15,582 signatures for 2026—puts a proposed change to the North Dakota Century Code (the state's statutory code) on the ballot.**
• Veto referendum. A petition signed by at least 2% of the population, filed within 90 days of a law being signed, forces a public vote on whether to keep or repeal a law the Legislative Assembly just passed.

*Another, rarely used pathway to changing the constitution exists: a state constitutional convention, which was last used in 1971–72. Like other amendments to the constitution, the process of calling a convention can be started by either the legislature, which can refer the question of holding a convention to the ballot, or the people, who can collect signatures to place a constitutional convention question on the ballot. Voters have to approve having a convention by simple majority. After the convention, voters also have to approve the new constitution or amendments to the existing constitution. In the case of the 1971-72 convention, the legislature referred the question of having a convention to the voters, voters approved having the question, but then voters did not approve the new constitution. 

**All initiative petitions must include the full text of the proposed measure and are only valid for one year of signature-gathering before they must be filed.

What Is North Dakota's History of Ballot Measures?

From statehood in 1889 through the present roughly 525 statewide measures have gone before North Dakota voters—constitutional amendments referred by the Legislative Assembly, citizen-initiated statutes and constitutional amendments, and referendums on laws the Legislative Assembly already passed (North Dakota Secretary of State, History of Initiative and Referendum). Just over half of those 525 measures—277, or 53%—reached the ballot through a citizen petition rather than a legislative vote. Of that petition-driven total, 146 were initiated statutes, 55 were initiated constitutional amendments, and 76 were referendums on legislative acts.

Two more statewide measures are coming up in the general election in November 2026: the legislatively-referred Measure 1—which would raise the threshold for amendments to pass from a simple majority (50% plus one vote) to 60%—and the citizen-initiated Measure 2—which would provide free school meals to all K–12 students in the state. 

Has North Dakota Ever Tried to Change the Initiative Process Itself?

Constantly—almost entirely through legislative referrals that would raise the thresholds to qualify or pass measures. Between the 1918 reform and 1978, the Legislative Assembly referred eight separate proposals to voters that would have made it harder to initiate a constitutional amendment, initiate a statutory ballot measure, or hold a referendum on a law passed by the legislature. North Dakotans said no six times in a row:

• March 15, 1932: rejected a proposal to raise the signature requirement from 20,000 to 40,000 by a 2-to-1 margin. 
• 1936, 1940, 1942, and 1958: further signature-increase proposals, all defeated by similarly wide margins.
• November 8, 1966: a proposal tying the signature requirement to 3% of population (to initiate) and 2% (to refer) came much closer, losing about 55% to 45%

A seventh attempt, in 1972, actually won voter approval as part of a broader proposed constitutional rewrite—but because the new constitution itself was rejected at the same election, that change never took effect. The eighth attempt finally succeeded: on November 7, 1978, voters approved the population-based formula still used today—2% of the state's population to initiate or refer a statute, and 4% to initiate a constitutional amendment.

Since 1978, direct attempts to change the mechanics of the process have kept coming, but the pattern of North Dakotans rejecting them mostly held—until this year:

• 2019–2020: The Legislative Assembly referred a measure that would have revived something close to the pre-1918 system, requiring initiated constitutional amendments to go back to the Legislative Assembly for approval, or be voted on a second time, before taking effect. Voters rejected it on the November 2020 ballot 62% to 38%.
• 2024: A more sweeping package—a single-subject rule, a higher 5% signature threshold for constitutional initiatives, and a requirement that citizen-initiated constitutional amendments pass at both a primary and a general election—failed by a vote 56% to 44%.
• June 9, 2026: A narrower version succeeded. Voters approved a single-subject requirement for all future constitutional amendments—both citizen-initiated and legislatively referred—by roughly 66% to 34%. North Dakota becomes the 17th state with such a rule (North Dakota Monitor, Constitutional Measure 1 results; Prairie Public election coverage).
• November 3, 2026 (pending): North Dakota voters will decide Constitutional Measure 2, which would raise the vote required to adopt a constitutional amendment—whether citizen-initiated or legislatively referred—from a simple majority to a 60% supermajority. As of this writing, that vote has not yet happened.

How Does North Dakota's Proposed 60% Threshold Compare to Other States?

A 60% approval threshold would put North Dakota in a small group. As of 2025, only two states—Florida and Illinois—required a 60% supermajority to adopt a constitutional amendment (Multistate.us, Ballot Measures — MultiState Elections and Ballotpedia, Supermajority requirements for ballot measures). Florida's voters adopted its 60% rule in 2006 by a vote of 57%—meaning, under the very rule they were creating, that vote would have fallen just short of the bar it set (WPTV, reporting on Florida's 60% requirement). Illinois allows an amendment to pass with 60% of those voting on the question, or with a simple majority of everyone who voted in the election at all. Colorado sits just below that tier, requiring 55% of the vote for most constitutional changes since voters adopted that rule in 2016. New Hampshire's bar is the highest in the country: a two-thirds vote of the people, after a three-fifths vote in both legislative chambers just to get the question on the ballot (State Court Report, a project of the Brennan Center for Justice, Constitutional Amendment Processes in the 50 States).

North Dakota wouldn't be alone in considering the jump in 2026. South Dakota has its own 60% supermajority measure—Amendment L—on the same November 3, 2026 ballot. 

Why Does the Initiative Process Matter for Majority Rule?

For 137 years, North Dakota's answer to "how many votes does it take to change the constitution?" has been the same: more than half. That's what majority rule means in practice—the side with more votes wins, whether the margin is 50.1% or 99.9%.

A supermajority requirement changes that math. Under a 60% threshold, a group holding just 40% of the vote, plus one, can block a change that the other 60% minus one voter supports—a form of minority rule, where the smaller side can override the larger one. Supporters of North Dakota's pending 60% measure argue that constitutional change should require broader consensus than an ordinary law, since a constitution sets the basic rules future legislatures and voters both have to live with. Opponents argue that direct democracy's whole purpose in North Dakota—reserving lawmaking power to the people themselves—is undercut if a well-organized minority can override a clear majority.

Bottom Line

In the 108 years since North Dakota’s initiative process took their current form, the pattern has been strikingly consistent. North Dakotans have used the process often, and every time the Legislative Assembly has asked them to make it harder to use, they have mostly said no—with just two exceptions in over a century: in 1978 and in June 2026. The proposed 60% threshold on the November 2026 ballot would be the first time voters are asked to raise the bar for passage itself, rather than the bar for getting a petition on the ballot in the first place.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "Measure 1" or "Measure 2" mean on my ballot?

Measure numbers reset with every election—North Dakota's June 2026 primary ballot had its own "Measure 1," and the November 2026 general election ballot will have its own separate numbering starting again at 1. A measure number by itself tells you nothing about what the measure does; you have to look up that specific election's ballot to find out. The Secretary of State's Measures on Ballot page has the official text, ballot language, and a summary for every measure on the current ballot. This November, “Measure 1” will refer to the 60% threshold amendment and “Measure 2” to the school meals amendment. 

What's on my ballot? What issues or amendments are on my ballot?

The only way to get a fully accurate answer is to look up your specific ballot, since North Dakota's ballot changes by election and, for legislative races, by district. Use the Secretary of State's Sample Ballot Lookup tool with your address, or check the Measures on Ballot page for statewide constitutional and initiated measures specifically. All North Dakota voters will have the chance to vote on Measure 1 and Measure 2 in November 2026. 

Is a supermajority requirement the same as minority rule?

In practice, yes, in the sense that any supermajority threshold hands veto power to a minority of voters. The higher the threshold, the smaller the share of voters that can block a change the majority supports. Under a 60% threshold, a minority of just over 40% can override a majority of just under 60%.

What is the main argument for a supermajority requirement, and what is the main argument against it?

Supporters argue that constitutional amendments carry more weight than ordinary laws and should require a broader, more durable consensus than 50% plus one vote. Supporters also argue that the higher threshold still permits voters to change the constitution when the change commands sufficiently broad support. Opponents argue that raising the threshold builds minority rule into the constitution, letting a smaller, well-funded, or better-organized faction block changes most voters actually want.

When is the next election in North Dakota?

North Dakota's next general election is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. The state holds primary elections in June of even-numbered years and general elections in November of even-numbered years; local elections for townships and school districts happen on their own separate schedules.

How do I vote in North Dakota, and when are polls open?

North Dakota is the only state in the country with no voter registration. You can vote by simply appearing with acceptable identification showing your name, current North Dakota residential address, and date of birth. Polling hours vary slightly by county, but state law requires every polling place to open between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. and close between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. local time. Check your specific county's hours and location through the Secretary of State's Where Do I Vote tool.

Can I vote by mail in North Dakota?

Yes. North Dakota allows any qualified elector to request an absentee ballot for any reason; several counties also conduct elections entirely by mail. Details on requesting an absentee ballot are available through the Secretary of State's Absentee Voting page.

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