The Impact of the Election - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

The Impact of the Election

Polls are open until 7 o'clock tonight.
Typically primary elections only draw about a quarter of the voting population out to cast their ballot, but this year is certainly different.
To quote Ward County Auditor/Treasurer Devra Smestad "It's been a huge turnout."
Four Constitutional Measure are on the ballot, three that have drawn quite a bit of interest and even controversy.
From abolishing property taxes to prohibiting the government from burdening religious freedom to the UND Fighting Sioux nickname and Logo, and then there's the candidates vying for public office each person had a reason to vote today.

(Election Volunteer) "Hello, may I see your ID, I want to make sure you're voting in the right spot."

If the turnout today was an indication of the implications of measures on the ballot there was a lot riding on this June Primary election.

(Grace Fisher, Minot) "Well I suppose the tax issue would certainly impact me directly eventually one way or another."

{paper ripping}
Tax, Religion, and tradition, are the big three measures on the ballot.

(Andy Wentz, Minot) "I feel strongly  on a couple opinions without getting into details but yes there's a couple."

Voters also had decisions to make about public office.
The main contested congressional races were in the GOP column, for U-S Senate between Rick Berg and Duane Sand and U-S House candidates of Kevin Cramer and Brian Kalk.
Three candidates are also vying for the position of North Dakota Superintendent of Public Instruction, Baelser, Laird and Potter.  The top two vote getters will advance to the General Election in November.

(Sharon Klusmann, Election Volunteer) "It's has been a little crazy but wonderful, lots of people voting."

At just the northwest polling site in Minot nearly one thousand people had cast their vote before one o'clock today.
With a steady stream of people filling voting sites around Minot at all times, it's clear there's a lot riding on this election on several different fronts.


The polls are open until 7pm tonight.
I want to mention one more time, if you're having trouble figuring out where to vote you can go to our facebook site, which is facebook.com/kxnewsminot.
There you will find a link to the Secretary of State's office website where you can type in your address and locate the correction voting site.
You have until 7pm to make your vote count.
in Southeast Minot, Shaun Sipma, back to you in the studio.