A county canvassing board rejected the absentee ballot of North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum’s wife
BISMARCK, ND — A North Dakota polling station has rejected Kathryn Burgum’s mail-in vote. wife of Republican Governor Doug Burgum, by the June elections.
Cheryl Biller, a Democrat who served on the Cass County Canvassing Board, confirmed that the board voted unanimously last month to reject her mail-in ballot because of mismatched signatures. The governor is in the race to be former President Donald Trump candidate for vice president.
About 150 ballots were reviewed twice for signature issues, but nine received a more detailed review by the board and six ballots were rejected, Biller said. County polling stations certify election results and take action on late-arriving mail ballots or reserved ballots cast at the polls.
Biller said that in the first lady’s case, the handwriting “just didn’t match.” She said she remembers her ballot because after the meeting someone watching came up to her and said the first lady’s ballot was among the rejected ballots. Her ballot was for Kathryn Helgaas, her maiden name, Biller said.
Burgum spokesman Dawson Schefter said, “Kathryn filled out her ballot. Cass County staff had a question about it, made a decision and the matter was resolved.”
She voted in the Republican primary, Schefter said. In deep-red North Dakota, where there is no voter registration, many races are effectively decided in competitive Republican primaries, given the GOP’s dominance in the state.
Biller said she’s glad she didn’t recognize the first lady’s name at the time because that would have created bias.
“She’s a voter like anyone else, right? She should be treated the same, and so I think I was glad I didn’t recognize it at the time. She was just another voter whose inconsistent signature we were considering,” Biller said.
About 60 ballots were rejected in Cass County — North Dakota’s most populous county and home to Fargo — for various reasons, said Craig Steingaard, the county’s elections administrator. Those included missing or mismatched signatures and late or missing postmarks, he said. Steingaard declined to confirm the rejection of Kathryn Burgum’s mail-in ballot.
As first lady, Kathryn Burgum has been a champion for fighting addiction, using her personal story of recovery from alcohol addiction. The Burgums married in 2016.