FARGO — Terri Hedman has voted in North Dakota elections for 40 years, but during the coronavirus pandemic, she said she made the switch to mail-in and absentee ballots.

She’s cast her ballot at her south Fargo home ever since, she said, adding she appreciates the ease of voting ahead of the election.

“I’m a nurse. I like to plan ahead, and I like to make sure things are done,” she said. “I love the idea that I can vote and know that is a task that is completed.”

Hedman was one of 91,556 North Dakota voters who cast their ballots by mail or absentee in the 2024 general election. That made up 25% of the state’s votes that year, according to a Forum analysis of Secretary of State’s Office data.

“Vote by mail is critical for North Dakota,” Secretary of State Michael Howe said. “As a rural state, people can be hours away from a physical polling location. Voting by mail gives folks that option to vote.”

Another 27% cast their ballots during early in-person voting, meaning less than half of North Dakota voters went to the polls on Election Day in November 2024.

Cody Schuler, an advocacy manager for the ACLU in North Dakota, said he wasn’t surprised that mail-in and absentee voting have become more popular. Voting by mail offers many benefits, and people have many reasons for using that method, he said.

“That’s fantastic that people are exercising their right in a way that is easy and convenient for them,” he said in response to the 2024 numbers.

Absentee ballots can be requested 40 days before an election in North Dakota. Under a state law passed in 2025, mail-in and absentee ballots must be received by the county election office no later than the close of polls on Election Day.

That’s June 9 for the primary election and Nov. 3 for the general election this year.

Nearly 36,000 mail-in and absentee ballots have been sent to North Dakota voters as of Thursday, May 28, with 17,705 returned to election officials, according to state data. The state has 600,394 eligible voters, Howe said.

Of the state’s 53 counties, 34 are classified as vote-by-mail, meaning those counties automatically send out an application to eligible voters for mail-in ballots.

In the remaining 19 counties, voters must request ballots by mail.

North Dakota’s voting by mail process is “very secure,” Howe said. Voters have to prove that they have lived in North Dakota for 30 days prior to the election.

No one is sent a ballot unless a person applies for one, Howe said.

“Similarly, you are only mailed a ballot after identity verification,” he said.

Some counties depended on mail-in and absentee ballots much more than others, according to the Forum analysis. In McHenry County, 2,001 voters used the remote option, making up 72% of the county’s voters. Rolette County had the lowest rate of voting by mail or absentee with 11%, followed by Morton County (12%) and Cass County (13%).

Voting in person can be challenging, Schuler and Howe said. North Dakota law requires each county to have at least one polling place during elections, Howe said.

Nearly half of North Dakota’s counties only have one voting center, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. Those polling places may be miles away, making it difficult for some to make it, Schuler said.

“We are a very rural state, and for many people, distance is an issue,” he said.

Eight counties allow early in-person voting up to two weeks before Election Day: Burleigh, Cass, Grand Forks, Morton, Sioux, Stark, Stutsman and Ward.

Early voting in Cass County runs 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. June 2-5 and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 6.

Nine of Cass County’s 17 Election Day polling places are in the metro area. A Cass County resident who lives near Colgate, which sits on the Steele County border, has to drive 30 miles to the nearest polling place in Tower City to vote.

McHenry County’s lone polling place is Towner, which is about 50 miles east of Minot. The polling place is roughly 60 miles from the county’s southwest corner and 40 miles from Anamoose, a city of 212 people in the county’s southeast corner.

Many counties can’t have early voting or more than one polling place because they can’t find enough poll workers, Howe said.

“Each county is responsible for the cost of their election,” he said, adding counties have to pay poll worker wages and rent for polling places.

Voting is a fundamental right, Schuler said.

“Eligible voters should have as many opportunities and options to exercise that right as possible,” he said. “Mail-in voting is really an easy way to do that.”

Mail-in ballot voting has grown in North Dakota over the last decade, from 52,319 ballots, or about 21% of voters, in the 2014 general election to almost double the number of voters in 2024, according to state data.

Minnesota’s growth in absentee and mail-in voting grew more dramatically. Nearly 244,000 people, or 12% of voters, used the option in the 2014 general election, according to The Forum’s analysis of Minnesota data. That jumped to 41%, or 1.33 million voters, in the 2024 general election.

Voting by mail in the North Star State has inched up over the years, with the high mark coming in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said. More than 1.93 million voters, or 59%, cast their ballots by mail, according to his office.

“I think it reflects our flexible menu of ways that people can vote in Minnesota,” Simon said. “I think people like that accessibility and choice.”

About 39% of Clay County voters mailed in their ballots in the 2024 general election, according to Minnesota Secretary of State data.

Minnesota law allows townships and cities with fewer than 400 residents to forgo setting up a polling place and hold elections entirely by mail, Simon noted. Towns like it for the cost-savings, and residents in rural areas like the option of voting from home instead of having to drive miles to a voting center, he said.

“That’s something that more and more cities and townships have taken advantage of as well,” he said of mail-in only elections. “It’s gotten good reviews from people who just want to be able to vote with ease in a way that makes sense for their own lives.”

North Dakota held its 2020 primary election completely by mail in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Roughly 160,000 voted in that election, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Months later, more than 185,000 North Dakotans, or 51% of the state’s voters, cast their ballots by mail, according to state data.

“I think that opened up a lot of people to experience voting by mail for the first time,” Howe said. “I think people liked the comfort of it and liked the convenience of it.”

Overall, Howe said North Dakota does well at offering voting choices.

“That’s the beauty of North Dakota elections,” he said. “North Dakotans have the choice to vote in a way that is most convenient to them.”

As a nurse, Hedman said emergencies can happen, including on Election Day, that call her attention away from tasks at hand. Being able to plan ahead makes voting easier, she said.

“This way, I feel confident that my voice is heard,” she said.

More information on voting in North Dakota, including absentee voting, can be found at

sos.nd.gov/elections/voter

. Voters also can find Minnesota information at

sos.mn.gov/elections-voting

.