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Committee advances Secretary of State cleanup bill updating notary, trade-name and fee rules
Summary
Senate Bill 2,144 would remove unnecessary collection of Social Security numbers, allow electronic notices and let notaries pass third‑party tech fees to consumers after disclosure; the committee voted to advance the measure.
The Industry, Business and Labor Committee voted to advance Senate Bill 2,144, a housekeeping bill filed to modernize the Secretary of State’s statutes on notaries, trade-name records and certain fees.
Deputy Secretary of State Sandy McMurdie told the committee the bill removes lingering statutory references that require collection of Social Security numbers (SSNs) in areas where the office no longer needs or uses them, reducing data-breach risk. The bill also permits the office to send email or text notifications in lieu of mailed notices, and adds language allowing remote or electronic notaries to pass third‑party platform fees to customers after prior disclosure.
McMurdie said the office will expunge SSNs during a planned data transfer and asked the committee to retain limited statutory protections that allow the agency to protect SSNs if a filer voluntarily provides them. The bill also adds a 30-day corrective process for trade-name filings that appear to misrepresent affiliation or use another person’s identity, enabling the office to cancel registrations after notifying involved parties.
Representatives of the North Dakota Land Title Association supported the changes. Nick Hacker of the association explained remote notarization workflows and said typical vendor fees range from roughly $15 to $35 per transaction; Hacker said his company pays an annual vendor access fee (about $3,500) plus per-act fees in higher-volume usage.
The bill eliminates a 50-cent-per-page copy fee and some obsolete filing fees; McMurdie said that change will reduce staff time and has a small net fiscal impact recorded in the bill’s fiscal note. Committee members asked about security and whether other states had breaches; McMurdie said she had no specific breach examples to cite and that vendor systems typically do not hold the higher security standard required for federal taxpayer identification numbers. The committee recorded a motion to give the bill a “do pass,” and the roll call showed 13 yes, 0 no, 1 abstention.
