ND Secretary of State approves ballot petition aiming to change elections

(Bismarck, ND) -- North Dakota's Secretary of State has approved a petition for a ballot initiative aimed at overhauling North Dakota elections.

The measure would ban voting machines and would only allow for paper ballots. It also mandates that all votes be counted by hand, and would also prohibit unsupervised public drop boxes for those ballots. Voters would also have the ability to recall elected officials with 10% rather than 25% of the vote.

Petition organizers must gather just over 31,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot.