BISMARCK – A bill to provide a fine of up to a $3,000 for fraudulent signatures passed the North Dakota State Senate Monday.
House Bill 1230 initially sought to issue a fine no less than $10,000 to a ballot measure’s committee chairman that willfully submits invalid signatures. Amendments were made by the House to lower the fine, and the Senate ultimately revised the bill to fine any member of the measure’s committee no more than $3,000 for willfully submitting a petition that contains one or more fraudulent signatures. The committee would be subject to a class A misdemeanor and may not reapply to the Secretary of State for authorization to do business under any name for five years after being found guilty of fraud.
“This doesn’t add any additional criminal penalty for that, it’s just to have a civil penalty, to have some sort of recourse when this does happen,” said Sen. Sean Cleary, R-Dis. 35, Bismarck.
“It seems like we’re going a little too far with this, and it seems like it’s just because of one measure that passed this last election,” said Sen. Jeff Magrum, R-Dis. 8, Hazelton. “Seems like we’re overreacting to some bad information that’s come out. Would we want all those folks that at that time made a mistake and all of a sudden be paying up to $3,000 and getting charged with class A misdemeanors?”
Sen. Judy Lee, R-Dis. 13, West Fargo, thought the bill would not infringe on anyone’s right to carry a petition.
“I ended up having my signature on a petition that was referred to earlier where the football players who were being paid, and this was long ago, it has nothing to do with term limits, they sat down around a table and they used phone books, and I got a call from the Attorney General saying, did you really sign that petition?” said Lee. “And I said no, I never signed an initiative, because that’s the people’s work.”
The bill passed by a vote of 39 to 6 and will be sent back to the House to consider the amendments of the Senate.
