North Dakota Secretary of State

The North Dakota Secretary of State is an elected office in the U.S. state of North Dakota. The incumbent as of 2015 was Alvin A. Jaeger. Duties of the Secretary of State include being the custodian of the state's Great Seal and other official state documents, recording the official acts of the Governor, distributing copies of legislative resolutions, and recording original bills and resolutions from each biennial Legislative Assembly. Other duties of the office include those pertaining to statewide elections, licensing within the state, and recording trademarks. Jaeger was the first elected officer to graduate from Dickinson State University.

History

From the creation of the office with the state's constitution in 1889, to 2015 there had been 14 Secretaries of State, the least number among any of the state offices created in that year. This is attributed to the 34-year tenure of Ben Meier, which as of 2015 was the longest of any state-level Secretary of State in the US. As of 2015 the office had been held by the North Dakota Republican Party at all times except the period 1989 to 1992, when the state's Democratic Party was in office. The Secretary of State originally served a two-year term, but this was extended to four in 1964 by a constitutional amendment.

List of Secretaries of State

The following is a list of Secretaries of State of North Dakota.[1]

Secretaries of State by party affiliation
Party Secretaries
Republican 13
Democratic-NPL 1
# Name Term Party
1 John Flittie 1889–1892 Republican
2 Christian M. Dahl 1893–1896 Republican
3 Fred Falley 1897–1900 Republican
4 Edward F. Porter 1901–1906 Republican
5 Alfred Blaisdell 1907–1910 Republican
6 Patrick D. Norton 1911–1912 Republican
7 Thomas Hall 1913–1924 Republican
8 Robert Byrne 1925–1934 Republican
9 James D. Gronna 1935–1940 Republican
10 Herman Thorson 1941–1942 Republican
11 Thomas Hall 1943–1954 Republican
12 Ben Meier 1955–1988 Republican
13 Jim Kusler 1989–1992 Democratic-NPL
14 Alvin A. Jaeger 1993– Republican

See also

References

  1. ↑ North Dakota Secretary of State | About the Secretary of State

External links