North Dakota
North Dakota first lady Kathryn Burgum's election ballot rejected
FARGO — The
North Dakota first lady’s
ballot was thrown out last month after election authorities determined the signature on her absentee application didn’t match the one on her mail-in ballot envelope.
The Secretary of State absentee tracker website shows the June 11 primary election ballot of Kathryn Helgaas, also known as
Kathryn Burgum,
was rejected because the “signatures do not match.” Helgaas married
Doug Burgum
in late 2016 after he was elected North Dakota governor for his first term. She uses the name Kathryn Burgum.
Doug Burgum’s absentee/mail-in ballot was accepted, according to the tracker website.
Kathryn Burgum was unavailable for comment before publishing time, Doug Burgum spokesman Dawson Schefter said. He confirmed she filled out her absentee ballot and voted in Cass County.
“Cass County staff had a question about it, reached a determination, and the matter was resolved,” Schefter said in a statement.
Contributed / North Dakota Secretary of State website
The Cass County Canvassing Board met on June 24. Along with Cass County Commission Chair Chad Peterson, County Finance Director Brandy Madrigga and County Recorder Deborah Moeller, three Democrats and three Republicans voted on whether to accept or reject ballots.
The board voted to reject Kathryn Helgaas’ ballot, said Cheryl Biller, a Democrat who was on the canvassing board. The last name on Helgaas’ absentee application didn’t match the envelope that contained her ballot, Biller said.
The board discussed how the first name on the ballot might have matched, but the last name “completely looked different,” Biller said.
It’s unclear what, exactly, made the two signatures different; The Forum was not allowed to review the application and ballot envelope to compare them.
“I’m not sure any of us recognized the name when we were looking at it,” she said. “I do remember, of the ones that we rejected, they just looked like they couldn’t be the same people.”
Biller said someone told her after the meeting that the ballot belonged to Kathryn Burgum.
Melissa Paulik, one of the Republicans, declined to discuss an individual’s ballot, but she said ballots rejected due to mismatched signatures “are usually pretty clear.”
“It’s not uncommon to have a unanimous vote,” she said.
Peterson, Democrat Christine Fastnaught and Republicans Hal Ecker and Amy Olson told The Forum they didn’t recall Kathryn Helgaas’ ballot. Democrat Renae Aafor didn’t return a message.
Doug Burgum is considered a top contender to be former President Donald Trump’s vice president running mate. The presumed Republican presidential nominee in the 2024 election is likely to announce his pick in the coming days, possibly at the Republican National Convention next week in Milwaukee.
Burgum will attend the convention, said spokesman Mike Nowatzki.
Trump claimed that mail-in ballots were a source of fraud that cost him the 2020 election against Democrat Joe Biden. The two are expected to face off in the general election on Nov. 5.
Michael Vosburg / The Forum
North Dakotans can request an absentee or mail-in ballot by filling out an application. They then receive a ballot, which must be sent back in a sealed envelope.
That envelope serves as a sworn statement, or affidavit, that the person who is voting is actually that person. North Dakota law requires voters to sign their own ballot applications and envelope affidavit, North Dakota Elections Director Erika White said.
Election officials then compare the signatures on the application and ballot envelope, Cass County Election Administrator Craig Steingaard said. If his office believes the signatures don’t match, staff send a letter to the person and try to call them to confirm the ballot is theirs, he said.
“It’s a good process,” he said of trying to get voters to confirm ballots with mismatched signatures. “I think Cass County does everything that we possibly can, because we don’t want anybody to have a rejected ballot. If we can get them to be able to provide us the information to make sure their ballot is counted, that’s what we are going to do.”
A county absentee board, separate from the canvassing board, can review the signatures as well before the canvassing board meets, White said. The voter then has until the canvassing board meets, which happens 13 days after an election, to contact election officials to fix, or “cure,” their ballot, she said.
North Dakota is one of 28 states that allows a voter to fix mismatched signatures. Steingaard said he has never seen a ballot with mismatched signatures be rejected if a voter confirms the ballot is theirs.
If the voter doesn’t respond, the canvassing board has to make the final call, Steingaard said.
“The county auditor, the absentee board, they have no ability to reject any voter’s ballot,” White said. “Only the canvassing board can make that determination.”
The county also sends out a letter to a person informing them that the canvassing board rejected their ballot and the reason it was thrown out, he said.
The county receives ballots with mismatched signatures every election, Steingaard said. What varies is the number, he said.
‘If her signatures don’t match’
State records indicate Kathryn Burgum’s ballot was sent to her on May 22 and returned to Cass County on June 12. The Burgums own property in Cass County, meaning Kathryn Burgum could vote in Cass County.
If the Secretary of State’s website says the first lady’s ballot was rejected, that means Cass County did not get a response to the letter it sent her before the canvassing board met, Steingaard said.
“In my experience, the signature usually needs to be pretty far off, if I’m being honest,” he said of canvassing boards rejecting a ballot. “It must have made people question it.”
The board reviewed 150 ballots, according to meeting minutes. The board rejected 11 because signatures on applications didn’t match the ballot envelope, Cass County spokeswoman Catlin Solum said.
The rejected ballots have been stored away by the county recorder, Solum said. They cannot be opened or inspected unless a recount happens or a judge issues a court order, Solum said in citing North Dakota canvassing law.
Biller acknowledged signatures can vary, and the canvassing board members aren’t trained in handwriting analysis. The first lady’s ballot should be treated like everyone else’s, Biller said.
“I guess I have to say, she shouldn’t get special consideration,” Biller said. “If her signatures don’t match, her signatures don’t match.”
Paulik said it is important for voters to try to use the same signature for ballot applications and ballots.
“I think many are unaware that these signatures are compared to ensure ‘one person, one vote,’” she said. “The canvassing board is usually pretty good at giving people the benefit of the doubt. (For example), they signed the application quickly but took more time with their ballot signature. Still, some people don’t make that job easy.”
Patrick T. Fallon/TNS
Burgum, Trump and mail-in ballots
Doug Burgum has served as North Dakota’s governor since late 2016. He also ran for president as a Republican but dropped out in December.
The governor declined to seek a third term as head of North Dakota’s government.
Speculation that Doug Burgum could be Trump’s running mate has grown in recent weeks. Trump has said he knows who he will pick, but he hasn’t said who the finalists are.
Doug Burgum has thrown his support behind Trump and has spent many days out of state campaigning on the former president’s behalf. Kathryn Burgum has often been at his side on the campaign trail for Trump.
Between May 22 and June 11, Doug Burgum appeared at the North Carolina Republican Convention, in New York as a jury ruled Trump was guilty in a hush money trial and in Louisiana to discuss an energy plan with 19 other governors.
The former president attacked absentee and mail-in ballots after his 2020 loss to Biden. He continuously claimed mail-in ballots were used to commit widespread election fraud and that the presidency was “stolen” from him.
Those allegations have been proven false.
Trump has seemingly in recent months changed his stance on absentee ballots.
“Absentee voting, early voting and Election Day voting are all good options,” Trump said recently on social media.
ABERCROMBIE — Long before lumber yards, Germans from Russia built their North Dakota homes from the prairie itself — clay, stone, straw and even manure — and a strong turnout heard how July 12, at Fort Abercrombie State Historic Site’s latest ND250 commemoration program.
Wyatt Atchley, an education coordinator with NDSU Libraries’ Department of Special Collections, traced the group’s journey from German lands to the Black Sea region and finally to the Dakotas, where their descendants now make up an estimated 30% to 40% of North Dakota’s population.
Fleeing war, taxes and religious suppression, Germans first settled in Russia under Catherine the Great’s 1763 invitation, Atchley said. The Black Sea Germans who would later populated the Dakotas came under Alexander I’s 1803 invitation, which promised free land, religious freedom, cultural autonomy and exemption from military conscription — promises made “in perpetuity.”
Russia revoked those promises in the late 1800s, requiring military service beginning in 1874 and restricting the German language. Between 1873 and 1914, more than 100,000 Germans from Russia emigrated to the United States, settling heavily in the “German-Russian Triangle” of central and southern North Dakota. Those who stayed behind saw their communities destroyed by Soviet collectivization and World War II.
Arriving on a treeless prairie much like the steppe they had left, the settlers used vernacular architecture — homes built by nonprofessionals from local earthen materials using puddled clay, rammed earth, adobe brick, and stacked or cut stone, Atchley said. He emphasized they did not build sod houses, a method associated with Norwegian settlers, because Germans from Russia brought generations of earthen-building experience with them.
Many of the homesteads survive in the Father William Sherman collection at NDSU, roughly 13,000 photographs and documents gathered in the 1970s that form one of the largest homestead collections in the country.
Site supervisor Lenny Krueger said the free program drew visitors from as far as Fargo and Delaware.
“We’re always learning something new about North Dakota, even as the staff here,” Krueger said.
Manisha Reddy is a reporter for the Wahpeton Daily News and Richland County News Monitor. Manisha can be reached by calling (701) 291-3581 or emailing manisha.reddy@wahpetondailynews.com.
GRAFTON, N.D. — Two North Dakota men who say they were switched at birth at a Grafton hospital in 1988 are suing the medical center after a 2023 DNA test revealed they had been raised by each other’s biological families.
According to court documents, Unity Medical Center denies all allegations in the complaint.
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Funeral service for Carmen Tweeten, 90, of Albuquerque, NM, formerly of Dickinson, will be 10:00 am, July 23, 2026 at Stevenson Funeral Home, Dickinson with Pastor Konrad Tweeten officiating. Burial will follow to Dickinson Cemetery. Visitation will take place one hour prior to the service. Carmen passed away July 8, 2026. Carmen Wayne Tweeten was born on February 4, 1936, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the son of Tillman and Minerva (Dahl) Tweeten. He grew up in Grand Forks and Dickinson, North Dakota, graduating from Central High School in Dickinson in 1954. He married Henrietta Oukrop on June 13, 1954, in Dickinson. They celebrated their 72nd wedding anniversary this year. In February of 1955, they welcomed their only child, a boy whom they named Konrad (Kon). Carmen graduated from Dickinson State College and then taught Junior High Science in Glendive, Montana. He graduated from Worsham College of Mortuary Science in Chicago, Illinois, with the highest grade point average in the school’s history (as of 2012 it was still not surpassed). Carmen worked at Silvernale Funeral Home in Glendive until moving to Echo, Minnesota in 1960 where he managed Sunset Funeral Home until 1978. In 1974, Carmen gave his life to Jesus Christ and began to teach Bible studies in the Echo area. He filled many pulpits for vacationing pastors and churches who were in between pastors. He also held revival meetings in western North Dakota. In 1978, he and his wife, Henrietta, moved to Dickinson, North Dakota, where they owned and operated Tweeten Funeral Homes in Dickinson and Bowman, North Dakota. In November of 1984, Carmen and Henrietta relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico where they lived for the past 42 years. Carmen worked at French Mortuary as both a funeral director and then as a pre-need funeral planner. He also worked for Monumental Life Insurance Company in Baltimore, Maryland, as a trainer and conference speaker. He retired in 1998 in Albuquerque where he and Henrietta continued to enjoy each other until his death at home on July 8, 2026. He is survived by his wife, Henrietta; his son, Kon (Connie) Tweeten of Albuquerque; three granddaughters, LaChae Webster of Oklahoma City OK, Kristy (Brian) Sterling of Wylie, Texas, and Yvette (Joshua) Smith of Dayton OH; fourteen great grandchildren, and nine great, great grandchildren; one brother, Dennis of The Villages Fl; one brother-in-law, Daniel (Kathy) Oukrop of Bismarck ND and many nieces, nephews, cousins and a multitude of friends. He was preceded in death by his parents, Tillman and Minerva Tweeten and Harry and Amy Oukrop, two brothers, two sisters, and one grandson. Remembrances and condolences can be shared at www.stevensonfuneralhome.com.
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