It’s official… North Dakotans will be asked whether or not local governments can impose property taxes.
"...The initiative, constitutional initiative to reform or eliminate the property tax structure here in North Dakota was submitted to the Office of the Secretary of State 35 days ago. Our office took 35 days to review those signatures and they needed 31,164 valid signatures to get ballot access, and we validated 35,720. And they submitted just over 41,000.
So, well above the threshold and will be measure number four on the November 5th general election ballot."
North Dakota Secretary of State Michael Howe made the announcement earlier today. He says the group had just over a year to collect the 41-thousand signatures and the fact 5,713 signatures were rejected is not surprising…
"...And sometimes the person signing doesn't always follow the proper directions, and that's mostly what we saw on some of those signatures that were thrown out. You need to sign your name and then print your name. So a lot of cases, some people printed their name twice, well, then that would be thrown out.
Or they just put their name and then didn't put their address, well, then that had to be thrown out. So things like that."
The property tax measure joins three other measures submitted by the state legislature. A 5th possible measure – which would allow the legal sale of recreational marijuana is still being reviewed.