ND Supreme Court orders term limit initiative on Nov. ballot

The North Dakota Supreme Court has ordered that a rejected term limit initiative be placed on the November ballot.

The measure would limit the terms of legislators and the Governor to eight years.

The High Court overturned a District Judge’s decision last month that Secretary of State Al Jaeger was justified in not certifying the initiative.

Jaeger claimed that more than 29,000 of the 46,000-plus petition signatures were not valid for various reasons.

In a 5-0 vote announced Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that Jaeger “misapplied the law” when he excluded petition signatures based on a determination that a pattern of likely notary violations on some petitions justified the invalidation of all signatures on all petitions that were sworn before the same notary.