Fargo, Cass County to vote-by-mail

Both the Cass County Commission and the Fargo City Commission met on Monday, and both took up a similar topic during their meetings—voting.

With the COVID-19 pandemic threatening to affect June primary voting, many precincts across the country are moving to a new trend—vote by mail. In North Dakota, 33 of the state’s 53 county commissions have approved the vote by mail process. In light of COVID-19, Governor Doug Burgum signed an executive order waiving the requirement for each county to have one polling place, so as to conform with The White House and CDC’s social distancing guidelines.

The counties are now able to use a five-day window to count the absentee ballots, although no results will be announced until the time when the polls would normally close, under normal conditions, according to Steve Sprague, auditor for the City of Fargo.

“We are hoping that we can stay current with the number of ballots we will be having,” Sprague said.

Cass County

At Monday’s Cass County Commission meeting, the commissioners voted unanimously to approve the vote by mail for the June primary election, including state and local elections. In addition, the Commission voted to close all polling location, but left the option open to have possibly one site if the pandemic improves by the time the June 9 election hits.

In a letter to commissioners, Cass County Finance Director Michael Montplaisir wrote, “We don’t take this change lightly.”

City of Fargo

The City of Fargo’s decision saw a little more contention than the Cass County Commission did.

City Attorney Erik Johnson briefed the Commission on the city’s statutes and ordinances, which state they follow the county’s election in June.

“The City Commission, through ordinances, does sort of control its own elections to some extent,” Johnson said.

If the City were to want to hold their own election, Sprague calls the process “complex,” saying there would be ‘a lot of steps that would need to take place.’

Commissioner Tony Gehrig asked Sprague about online voting, something Sprague says could be an option for the future.

Given the current circumstances, Gehrig says he “fears that we will have a drop in the number of people who are actually going to participate.”

Commissioner Dave Piepkorn, who is the city’s Deputy Mayor, says he has some concerns.

“This is a serious thing,” he says. “I think we should consider pushing it (the election) back two months.”

He says that everything surrounding the vote, for example, the campaigns, would not be happening.

“I think we need to consider this before we vote on this,” Piepkorn says.

Mayor Mahoney informed the commission that the Secretary of State will not move the election.

“I’m talking about the City of Fargo,” Piepkorn says. “This is an election for our commissioners, we can do what we want to do. We can move this to the fall election if we wanted to.”

“It’s a big deal,” Piepkorn continued.

Both Commissioners John Strand and Tony Grindberg, who are running for re-election, recused themselves from voting. A motion to allow Strand and Grindberg died due to lack of a second.

That left Mayor Tim Mahoney, Gehrig and Piepkorn to decide the fate of the election. With Piepkorn casting the lone dissenting vote, the June primary election will continue on as scheduled, via vote-by-mail.