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North Dakota Supreme Court elections, 2022
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The term of one North Dakota Supreme Court justice expired on December 31, 2022. The one seat was up for nonpartisan election on November 8, 2022. A primary was scheduled for June 14, 2022.
North Dakota was one of 30 states that held elections for state supreme court in 2022. That year, 84 of the 344 seats on state supreme courts were up for election. Of those, 64 were held by nonpartisan justices, 13 were held by Republican justices, and eight were held by Democratic justices. For more on the partisan affiliation of state supreme court justices, click here. For an overview of state supreme court elections in 2022, click here.
Candidates and results
Crother's seat
General election
General election for North Dakota Supreme Court
Incumbent Daniel Crothers won election in the general election for North Dakota Supreme Court on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Daniel Crothers (Nonpartisan) | 99.0 | 187,946 |
| Other/Write-in votes | 1.0 | 1,843 | ||
| Total votes: 189,789 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for North Dakota Supreme Court
Incumbent Daniel Crothers advanced from the primary for North Dakota Supreme Court on June 14, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Daniel Crothers (Nonpartisan) | 99.6 | 83,949 |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.4 | 324 | ||
| Total votes: 84,273 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Voting information
- See also: Voting in North Dakota
About the North Dakota Supreme Court
- See also: North Dakota Supreme Court
The North Dakota Supreme Court is the court of last resort for the state of North Dakota. The five justices on the court are elected to 10-year terms in nonpartisan elections.[1]
Political composition
This was the political composition of the supreme court heading into the 2022 election.
| ■ Daniel Crothers | Appointed by Gov. John Hoeven (R) in 2005; elected in 2008 and 2012 | |
| ■ Jon Jay Jensen | Appointed by Gov. Doug Burgum (R) in 2017; elected in 2020 | |
| ■ Lisa Fair McEvers | Appointed by Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) in 2013; elected 2016 | |
| ■ Jerod Tufte | Elected in 2016 | |
| ■ Gerald VandeWalle | Appointed by Gov. Arthur A. Link (D) in 1978; elected in 2014 |
Selection
- See also: Nonpartisan election of judges
The five justices of the North Dakota Supreme Court are chosen in nonpartisan elections to serve 10-year terms. Judicial hopefuls compete in a primary election, and the top two candidates advance to the general election in November. At the expiration of a judge's term, he or she must run for re-election to continue serving. In the event of a midterm vacancy, the governor appoints a replacement with help from a judicial nominating commission. Alternatively, the governor may call a special election to fill the vacancy. Appointed judges serve for at least two years, after which they must run in the general election to finish the remainder of the unexpired term.[2]
Qualifications
To serve on this court, a judge must be:
- a U.S. and state citizen and
- a licensed attorney.[2]
Selection of the chief justice
The court's chief justice is chosen by vote of the supreme and district court judges to serve a five-year term.[2]
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters (2021)
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: Determiners and Dissenters, a study on how state supreme court justices decided the cases that came before them. Our goal was to determine which justices ruled together most often, which frequently dissented, and which courts featured the most unanimous or contentious decisions.
The study tracked the position taken by each state supreme court justice in every case they decided in 2020, then tallied the number of times the justices on the court ruled together. We identified the following types of justices:
- We considered two justices opinion partners if they frequently concurred or dissented together throughout the year.
- We considered justices a dissenting minority if they frequently opposed decisions together as a -1 minority.
- We considered a group of justices a determining majority if they frequently determined cases by a +1 majority throughout the year.
- We considered a justice a lone dissenter if he or she frequently dissented alone in cases throughout the year.
Summary of cases decided in 2020
- Number of justices: 5
- Number of cases: 269
- Percentage of cases with a unanimous ruling: 94.4% (254)
- Justice most often writing the majority opinion: Justice Crothers (47)
- Per curiam decisions: 67
- Concurring opinions: 16
- Justice with most concurring opinions: Justice McEvers (8)
- Dissenting opinions: 16
- Justice with most dissenting opinions: Justice McEvers (8)
For the study's full set of findings in North Dakota, click here.
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
- See also: Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation, based on a variety of factors. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on the political or ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. To arrive at confidence scores we analyzed each justice's past partisan activity by collecting data on campaign finance, past political positions, party registration history, as well as other factors. The five categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[3]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
We used the Confidence Scores of each justice to develop a Court Balance Score, which attempted to show the balance among justices with Democratic, Republican, and Indeterminate Confidence Scores on a court. Courts with higher positive Court Balance Scores included justices with higher Republican Confidence Scores, while courts with lower negative Court Balance Scores included justices with higher Democratic Confidence Scores. Courts closest to zero either had justices with conflicting partisanship or justices with Indeterminate Confidence Scores.[4]
North Dakota had a Court Balance Score of 6.6, indicating Republican control of the court. In total, the study found that there were 15 states with Democrat-controlled courts, 27 states with Republican-controlled courts, and eight states with Split courts. The map below shows the court balance score of each state.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ North Dakota Courts, ""A Historical Sketch of the Supreme Court of the Dakota Territory and North Dakota Supreme Court,"" accessed December 3, 2014
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: North Dakota," archived October 3, 2014
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ The Court Balance Score is calculated by finding the average partisan Confidence Score of all justices on a state supreme court. For example, if a state has justices on the state supreme court with Confidence Scores of 4, -2, 2, 14, -2, 3, and 4, the Court Balance is the average of those scores: 3.3. Therefore, the Confidence Score on the court is Mild Republican. The use of positive and negative numbers in presenting both Confidence Scores and Court Balance Scores should not be understood to that either a Republican or Democratic score is positive or negative. The numerical values represent their distance from zero, not whether one score is better or worse than another.
Federal courts:
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: District of North Dakota • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: District of North Dakota
State courts:
North Dakota Supreme Court • North Dakota Court of Appeals • North Dakota District Courts • North Dakota Municipal Courts
State resources:
Courts in North Dakota • North Dakota judicial elections • Judicial selection in North Dakota
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