Former Democratic state lawmaker April Fairfield is running for Secretary of State.
Fairfield is seeking the party’s nomination this weekend at the state Convention in Fargo. She would face incumbent Republican Al Jaeger in the general election.
Fairfield says Jaeger has mismanaged the office. She says there have been cost overruns for a computer project – and she says Jaeger’s decision to temporarily reduce the hours his office was open to the public was the wrong thing to do. And Fairfield criticized Jaeger for not having any education program on the new voter ID law until after some local elections were held. She says there was anecdotal evidence of voters being turned away from the polls in Fargo because they didn’t have the proper forms of identification.
"After all of that, Secretary Jaeger launched a $700,000 voter education effort, to let North Dakotans know that voting in North Dakota is as 'Easy as Pie,'" said Fairfield. "The problem is, voting in North Dakota was easy. Now, it's convoluted. And it's flawed. And it's nothing that cartoon pie graphics can fix."
Jaeger says the new voter ID information campaign was timed for the statewide elections.
"The campaign is geared to reach the most people right before a statewide election," said Jaeger. "And the fact is -- North Dakota has had voter ID laws for more than 10 years. This is nothing new."
Fairfield also took Jaeger to task for the time when he decided to reduce the hours his office was open to the public – to allow his staff to catch up with the number of new business filings.
"You know what else should be 'easy as pie?' Walking into the Secretary of State's office during normal business hours, and finding the place open for business," said Fairfield.
But Jaeger defended that decision.
"It was one of the wisest things we did," said Jaeger. "It worked out exceedingly well, and the customers were able to get better service provided by my staff. It took a lot of pressure off of them."
Jaeger has been Secretary of State for 22 years.