North Dakota limits private election support and rotates candidate names

State and local governments may not accept private grants or donations for election operations or administration, or use private entities to run elections. These restrictions apply to the state and its political subdivisions. Governments may use privately owned polling places, provide food for poll workers, and accept other noncash donations not used to handle ballots or votes. Knowingly violating the restriction on grants or donations is a class A misdemeanor.

County auditors must arrange candidate names using a rotation method approved by the secretary of state. The text covers state, district, and county offices, with separate rotation sequences for countywide and smaller district elections. The method must spread candidates across ballot positions as equally as possible among precinct ballots. All ballots in one precinct must show the same candidate order for each office.

County auditors must publish sample ballots in the voting formats used in the county and list legislative candidates by district. The publication duty applies to county auditors preparing sample ballots for a general election. The notice must tell voters that candidate order on their precinct ballot may differ from the published sample. If no newspaper is published in the county, the sample ballot must appear in a newspaper published in an adjoining North Dakota county. The sample ballot must be published once a week for two consecutive weeks before the general election.