Jun. 12—GRAND FORKS — Despite an increase of nearly 30,000 eligible voters in North Dakota this year, the number of ballots unofficially cast in the Tuesday, June 11, primary election remained nearly the same.

Across the state, 17.86% of eligible voters cast ballots; the unofficial turnout was 106,111, according to the North Dakota secretary of state website. This is a slight decrease from the 2022 primary election (106,168 votes cast) and 2020 (106,114), despite a 29,205 increase this year in eligible voters.

Though there was a slight increase in the number of Grand Forks County’s primary election ballots cast this year, election day turnout was on the lower end, according to Debbie Nelson, county auditor.

Just after 9 p.m. Tuesday, Nelson shared unofficial numbers with the Herald. She said 818 absentee ballots were collected for the county, 1,382 were cast during early voting and 5,492 were cast at four locations on election day.

This adds up to a total of 7,692 votes — 13.32% of eligible voters in the county, according to the North Dakota secretary of state website.

“I guess I’m not (surprised),” Nelson said. “It’s typical for a primary.”

Election day turnout itself ranges from 5,000 up to 16,000, she said, so turnout on Tuesday was on the lower end, she said.

Outside a polling station at Home of Economy in Grand Forks, Bob Sheppard said no specific race or measure impassioned him to show up and participate, but he believed it was important to vote regardless.

“You can’t complain if you don’t vote,” Sheppard said.

Election day events were held in Grand Forks for the North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party and North Dakota Republican Party. Mayor Brandon Bochenski hosted an event at The Opal, but was not in attendance due to illness, he told the Herald.

District 42 candidates Carol Hagen and Rod Gigstad, running for state House and Senate, respectively, hosted an outdoor party to watch election results roll in that evening. All Democratic-NPL legislative candidates for districts 42 and 18 were in attendance.

As votes began to come in, Democrats Gigstad and Sarah Grossbauer, running for a District 42 seat in the state House of Representatives, told the Herald they were interested to see which Republican candidates they’d ultimately be running against.

“A lot of legislative races on the Republican side, statewide, are contested,” Grossbauer said. “It’ll be very telling to see how these primaries shake out, on how the general’s going to look.”

Grossbauer said sometimes she feels it would be easier to appeal to moderate Republicans if she and her fellow Democratic-NPL candidates were running against someone with more drastically right-leaning politics.

“But then I also think they have so much money behind them,” she said. “It’s crazy, just in the primary, to see the money that’s behind the populist Republican. It’s a little intimidating.”

Gigstad agreed that the money is certainly out there, and said he’d received a pile of Republican literature mailed to his home.

“It’d be interesting to know where the money is coming from,” he said.

Gigstad remains hopeful.

“We can counteract it,” he said. “Especially against — like Sarah said — the more radical right, because I think people are tired of that.”