§ 16.1-01-10 — Secretary of state to pass upon sufficiency of petitions - Method - Time limit

limit.
1. The secretary of state shall have a reasonable period, not to exceed thirty-five days, in
which to pass upon the sufficiency of any petition mentioned in section 16.1-01-09.
The secretary of state shall conduct a representative random sampling of the
signatures contained in the petitions by the use of questionnaires, postcards,
telephone calls, personal interviews, or other accepted information-gathering
techniques, or any combinations thereof, from which the secretary of state may
exercise the secretary's judgment as to the validity of the individual signatures or
groupings of signatures and other irregularities in the petition, thereby determining

whether those signatures are to be counted as part of the necessary signature
amount. Signatures determined by the secretary of state to be invalid may not be
counted and if the number of valid signatures received is less than the required
number of signatures to place the measure on the ballot, the secretary of state may
not allow the measure to be placed on the ballot. When the secretary of state does not
approve the measure to be placed on the ballot due to an insufficient petition, the
action is presumed to be lawful, unless the presumption is rebutted by clear and
convincing evidence that the action of the secretary of state was unlawful. All violations
of law discovered by the secretary of state must be reported to the attorney general for
prosecution.
2. For purposes of this section "clear and convincing evidence" means that degree of
proof which, considering all the evidence in the case, produces the firm and abiding
belief that it is highly probable that the proposition on which the challenging party has
the burden of proof is true.