This article was originally published by North Dakota Monitor on April 27, 2026. It is republished here under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Any views expressed are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Independent Political Report or the Outsider Media Foundation. Links are included as in the original. Title amended for style. Header image provided by Independent Political Report.
The name of the North Dakota lawmaker who died in a plane crash over the weekend will remain on the June primary ballot but will not be on the general election ballot in November.
Potential candidates to replace Rep. Liz Conmy as the Democratic-NPL House nominee in District 11, which covers part of south Fargo, have until May 19 to file as a certified write-in candidate with the North Dakota Secretary of State’s Office.
Conmy died Saturday in a plane crash in the Twin Cities suburb of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Conmy had filed to run for reelection in District 11.
According to the North Dakota Secretary of State’s Office, Conmy’s name will remain on the June 9 primary ballot, because the accident happened after the deadline to withdraw from the election. Mail-in ballots already had been provided to some voters for the June primary.
Conmy is on the primary ballot for District 11 House of Representatives along with fellow Democrat Anastassiya Andrianova.
If Andrianova and Conmy are the top two vote-getters among the Democrats in the primary, Conmy’s name would not be forwarded to the general election ballot, Secretary of State Michael Howe said.
In that case, Andrianova would be the only candidate listed as a Democrat for the District 11 House seats.
If there are two Democratic candidates that get more votes than Conmy, those names advance to the general election.
People seeking to become a certified write-in candidate can declare a party affiliation or run as an independent.
Write-in votes for people who are not certified with the state as write-in candidates for legislative and statewide offices are not counted, Howe said. That is different from local elections, where write-in candidates are more common.
While a certified write-in candidate is likely in District 11, the May 19 deadline applies to all legislative districts and statewide offices.
There also is a deadline of Aug. 31 to run as an independent candidate in the Nov. 3 general election. Republicans do not have candidates running for House in District 11.
A person who runs in the primary election but doesn’t advance is barred from running as an independent candidate in the general election, something Howe called the “sore-loser rule.”
Democratic Sen. Tim Mathern, who has represented District 11 along with Conmy, said the district party’s executive committee will likely meet this week to discuss a list of potential write-in candidates. He said the party could then back a write-in campaign.
The executive committee also will discuss a potential replacement for the rest of Conmy’s term, Mathern said.
The district party needs an official notification of a vacancy from Senate Majority Leader David Hogue, R-Minot, before it can name a replacement for Conmy, whose term would expire Dec. 1.
The process for replacing Conmy as a candidate differs from the process to fill a seat in District 20 in eastern North Dakota.
In District 20, Republican Rep. Jared Hagert of Grand Forks resigned earlier this year to take a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency. Republicans recently named Dave Rustebakke of Larimore to fill Hagert’s seat until Dec. 1.
Rustebakke also is a candidate for the seat in the November general election. Democrat Nik Groenewald also will be on the ballot but other potential candidates still have time to file. The filing deadline for the District 20 seat is Aug. 31. There is no primary election for District 20.
Odd-numbered legislative districts are on the ballot this year, with the exception of seats in even-numbered districts affected by legislative vacancies.
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