Committee hears competing arguments on HB 1446 to replace party endorsements with petition thresholds

Representative Mike Naithi (District 30, Bismarck) told the House Government and Veterans Affairs Committee that House Bill 1446 would move primary-ballot access from party or district endorsements to petition signatures, keeping party conventions but removing automatic ballot placement from an endorsement. “In order to be placed on the primary ballot…you must get the required signatures,” Naithi said, urging that the change would let the broader electorate — not a small number of delegates — decide ballot access.

The bill would preserve the existing 1 percent signature requirement for legislative candidates (Naithi and others described that as roughly 167 signatures in an average district) and set a 2,000-signature minimum for statewide candidates, a number Naithi said he derived from National Conference of State Legislatures comparisons.

Supporters said petitions expand access. Dustin Amundson and other district activists described local endorsing conventions they said were closed or informal and said petition access let candidates bypass what they called gatekeepers. Charles Tuttle and other witnesses pressed that the change would open the field to more grassroots participation.

Opponents, including attorney Robert Harms of Lisonbee and former Governor Schaeffer, warned the measure would erode party organizations and give an advantage to wealthy or well-financed outsiders. “If the parties at the district and the state level…if their endorsement means nothing…the political parties at the district and the state level…will essentially have little value,” Harms told the committee, and he urged instead uniform bylaws, public notice, and other fixes to party procedures. Governor Schaeffer argued the change would make party endorsement meaningless and warned that primaries “become for the wealthy, for the elite, and for the chosen few.”

North Dakota Republican Party officials, including Chair Sandra Sanford and first vice chair John Trandam, told the committee the state party’s endorsement process helps vet candidates, protects party values and supports recruitment in rural areas. Sanford said removing party-led ballot access would “favor candidates with more time, money, [and] name recognition” and would be especially burdensome for rural candidates.

Michael Howe of the Office of the Secretary of State gave a practical estimate of the administrative impact if this bill passed as written: assuming full slates, the signature workload would rise sharply. “That’s 53,200 at the bare minimum,” he said, walking the committee through his office's estimate for 2026 (14 statewide candidates × 2,000 plus legislative petitions). Howe added that candidates typically submit more than the minimum and that the office might need extra staff or overtime to handle a much larger signature volume.

Committee members pressed the sponsor on details. Representative Alexander Carls asked whether the 2,000 figure applied to legislative offices; Naithi repeated it applies only to statewide contests and that the 1 percent threshold for legislative candidates remains unchanged. Several Republicans on the panel and in testimony noted that many delegates who attend endorsing conventions are local volunteers who believe their vetting role is important to preserve party coherence.

No formal committee action was recorded at the hearing’s close; the committee concluded testimony and closed the public hearing on HB 1446.