Emily Eckroth recall, Bismarck Public Schools, North Dakota (2023)

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Bismarck Public Schools recall
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Officeholders
Emily Eckroth
Recall status
Resigned
Signature requirement
Signatures equal to 25% of voters who cast ballots in the last gubernatorial election in the school district
See also
Recall overview
Political recall efforts, 2023
Recalls in North Dakota
North Dakota recall laws
School board recalls
Recall reports

An effort to recall Emily Eckroth from her position on the five-member Bismarck Public Schools school board in North Dakota ended with her resignation on February 21, 2023.[1]

The effort began in January 2023. A draft of the recall petition was filed with the North Dakota Secretary of State days after all five members of the school board, including Eckroth, voted to censure Eckroth. The censure vote came after Eckroth pleaded guilty in December 2022 "to a misdemeanor count of physical obstruction of a government function," according to the Bismarck Tribune. The government function was a traffic stop that occurred on September 3, 2022.[2][3][4]

During the meeting in which the school board voted to censure Eckroth, board members also asked her to resign. Eckroth said she was sorry for the incident, but she declined to resign at that time. In a statement released in December 2022, Eckroth said she "accepted responsibility for my regrettable actions."[4]

Eckroth was elected to her four-year term on the board in June 2022.[4]

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing recall in North Dakota

Recall supporters filed a draft of the recall petition with the North Dakota Secretary of State on January 12, 2023.[2] The secretary of state's office approved the petition for circulation on January 20, 2023.[5]

To get the recall on the ballot, supporters would have had to collect signatures equal in number to 25% of the voters who cast ballots in the last gubernatorial election in the school district.[6]

2023 recall efforts

See also: School board recalls

Ballotpedia tracked 48 school board recall efforts against 97 board members in 2023. Sixteen of those board members faced recall elections. The recall elections were held on January 10, 2023, August 1, 2023, August 8, 2023, August 29, 2023, November 7, 2023, and December 12, 2023. The school board recall success rate was 13.4%.

The chart below details the status of 2023 recall efforts by individual school board member.


See also

External links

Footnotes