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A new website allows members of the public to view the financial interest statements of North Dakota political candidates and other elected or appointed officials.
For decades, candidates and some government officials have had to disclose information including their family’s primary source of income, as well as businesses they or their spouse have a financial stake in.
State filings previously were maintained as paper records and could only be accessed by submitting a request to the North Dakota Secretary of State’s Office, which could involve a fee.
Moving forward, the public will be able to download the forms for free online. On the office’s new website, which went live Jan. 1, users can search for filing by name, year, position, agency and other categories.
More financial reporting proposed for North Dakota elected officials
The Legislature directed the Secretary of State’s office to make the filings available online in a law passed last year.
The law, House Bill 1469, also for the first time requires candidates and certain officials to update their statements annually.
The statements were previously only required when someone became a candidate for elected office, or when they were appointed to a position by the governor.
That meant a lot of the information on file about officials’ financial interests was out of date, said Carol Sawicki, treasurer for the League of Women Voters of North Dakota.
“Things could change — which they usually do — and the public wouldn’t know about it,” said Sawicki, who testified in support of the legislation.
The new deadline for annual filings is Jan. 31 of each year. That means candidates and officials will submit a new batch of statements by the end of this month.
As of Friday afternoon, there were more than 150 filings on the website. The vast majority are for 2026. Deputy Secretary of State Sandra McMerty said that for practical reasons, the Secretary of State’s Office doesn’t plan on digitizing paper-copy statements of interest from past years.
House Bill 1469 also for the first time requires filers to provide the following information:
- A list of any local governments or state agencies that the individual or their spouse have provided more than $5,000 worth of goods or services to.
- A list of any employer, business or trust in which the individual or their spouse has more than a 10% stake in.
McMerty said the agency has reached out to officials and candidates to notify them of the new requirements, and is hosting trainings to make sure they understand the changes.
Candidates for federal office are exempt from the statement of interest reporting requirements, since they already report this information to the Federal Election Commission.
Sawicki said she hopes the Legislature considers requiring more detailed statements of interest in the future. She suggested that candidates and officials be required to share information about not just spouses, but other relatives as well — like children, parents and siblings.
“Children and parents are very often very closely financially intertwined,” she said.
The launch of the new site coincides with a major upgrade to the Secretary of State’s Office’s campaign finance search tool.
Effort to improve North Dakota campaign finance reporting fails
McMerty said the update allows users to search and analyze campaign finance data in greater detail.
“The general upgrades are really a more user-friendly platform for both the public and those who are required to file,” she said.
City and county candidates and office holders don’t file their information with the Secretary of State’s Office, but with local agencies.
A proposal to change several elements of North Dakota’s campaign finance laws failed at the tail end of the 2025 legislative session.
The bill was partly intended to incentivize more candidates to file on time by increasing late fees and making info about late filers public online.
Lawmakers also debated adding other requirements, including publicizing candidates’ beginning and ending campaign fund balances, and itemized campaign expenditures. North Dakota already makes campaign contributions above $200 public.
Legislators opposed to the additions said they doubted the information would be useful to the public, and feared the changes would discourage North Dakotans from running for office.
The Secretary of State’s Office is in charge of collecting late fees for officials and candidates that file with its office. Late fees range from $25 to $200.
Those who willfully violate filing requirements could also be subject to a class A misdemeanor.
North Dakota Monitor reporter Mary Steurer can be reached at [email protected].
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