Title 46, Printing Laws

The authority to purchase and supervise all printing for the various state departments and agencies is vested in the state office of management and budget.

The office of management and budget shall: 1. Bid all printing requisitions as requested and let all contracts. 2. Determine the price of any legal notice or publication when requested by any state agency or department, or by any political subdivision. Its decision on the proper …

The office of management and budget shall have charge of all the printing required to be done for all state agencies except as otherwise provided by section 46-02-09.

The printing of the state is divided into the following classes: 1. The printing of bills and resolutions of the legislative assembly constitutes the first class. However, certain bills and resolutions may be excepted from this class, as directed by officers of the legislative as…

The legislative assembly may enter an agreement with central duplicating services of the office of management and budget to print materials in classifications 1, 2, and 4, before any regular, reconvened, or special session. Alternatively, the legislative assembly may request the …

If the legislative assembly requests the office of management and budget to invite bids for printing materials in classifications 1, 2, and 4, the office of management and budget shall award the contract for classifications 1, 2, and 4 of printing to the lowest bidder, subject to…

Each proposal for classifications 1, 2, and 4 of state printing let under competitive bids must be in writing, sealed, and addressed to the office of management and budget. The office of management and budget may reject any bid made by anyone other than a regularly established an…

No bids may be received after the hour specified in the published notice. No bid may be changed after the same has been received.

All state printing in classifications 3 and 6 must be purchased by the office of management and budget, or delegated, according to chapter 54-44.4, unless the work is done by the central duplicating service of the office of management and budget or determined to be the most cost-…

1. Each contractor under this chapter, promptly and without unnecessary delay, shall execute all orders issued to that contractor by the legislative assembly, either branch of the legislative assembly, the legislative council, or the office of management and budget on behalf of t…

The office of management and budget may reject any and all printing that is not done in a workmanlike manner or with good material and with ordinary promptness. It may require contractors to present specimen pages of type they propose to use, and may reject the same in its discre…

If practicable, all state, county, and other political subdivision public printing, binding, and blank book manufacturing, blanks, and other printed stationery must be awarded to a resident North Dakota bidder as defined in section 44-08-02.

All printed forms for acknowledging the receipt of cash, and for warrants, checks, or other orders for the payment or disbursement of funds supplied to municipalities, as defined by chapter 21-03, must be serially numbered by the printer, and no printer may furnish any unnumbered…

All regular messages from the governor and all inaugural messages of the governor-elect must be printed in pamphlet form.

The printing or reproduction of legislative bills, resolutions, and journals must be in accordance with the rules of the senate and house of representatives of the state of North Dakota.

In arranging the laws, memorials, and resolutions for publication, the legislative council shall make such corrections in orthography, grammatical construction, and punctuation of the same as in its judgment are proper. When any law published in the code contains a reference to c…

The legislative council shall correct ministerial or clerical errors and supervise the publication of the session laws and pocket part supplements to this code in a manner and form prescribed by the legislative council, correlating each year's laws with this code.

The Constitution of North Dakota must be published in a format that will correlate and integrate all constitutional provisions in a numbering arrangement that avoids ambiguity and duplication and that aids in placing constitutional amendments into the constitution. The Constituti…

The legislative council may establish specifications for publication of this code and contract with a publisher with respect to editorial, information processing, and publication services. The legislative council may continue any agreement with the publisher and may contract for …

All laws contained in the session laws must be printed or published with the word "approved" and the date of approval and with the word "filed" and the date of filing. In each authenticated volume of the session laws there must be a general certificate made by the secretary of st…

The secretary of the senate and the chief clerk of the house shall furnish journal copy for their respective houses and copies of legislative documents to the printer of the legislative documents or daily journals. A contractor is not accountable under section 46-02-10 for any de…

All laws, journals, and documents printed and published by central duplicating services of the office of management and budget or any contractor under this title, and duly certified by the secretary of state and the legislative council as provided in section 46-03-15 or rules of …

Any statute "Omitted" from this code accompanied by a note stating the statute was "Omitted as a statute not of a general and permanent nature" or a note stating the statute was "Not repealed but omitted as a statute not of a general and permanent nature" may not be construed as …

Each member of the legislative assembly, constitutional officer of the state, and judge of the supreme and district courts for the use of their respective offices and departments is entitled to receive from the state a copy of any publication of the laws of the state and of any c…

The state libraries shall receive copies of the session laws, compilations, or codifications as follows: 1. The supreme court law library, five copies. 2. The law library of the state university and the school of mines, fifty copies. 3. The library in each state institution of hi…

The legislative council shall distribute as provided in sections 46-04-01 and 46-04-02 the publication of any session laws, compilations, or codifications, and copies of those documents, as soon as practicable. The legislative council shall furnish to the legislative assembly add…

Except as otherwise provided by law, each copy of laws, compilations, or codifications furnished to any officer, department, or agency of the state, or to the legislative assembly, its officers, or committees is the property of the state and must be surrendered to the legislative…

The board of county commissioners of each county, immediately after the publication of any session laws, codes, or compilations, shall cause a copy thereof to be furnished to the following county officers upon request: 1. Auditor. 2. State's attorney. 3. Ex officio clerk of court…

All session laws, compilations, and codifications distributed under sections 46-04-01 to 46-04-04, except those issued to a member of the legislative assembly through service, must be bound in some distinctive and unusual color, and must be marked plainly in large letters on the …

Each copy of laws, compilations, or codifications distributed by a county or other municipality forever must remain the property thereof, and, at the end of an officer's term, must be delivered by each officer to that officer's successor.

The legislative council may distribute copies of all laws passed by each legislative assembly and all compilations or codifications of laws passed by each legislative assembly: 1. In exchange for like publications of other states. 2. To replace copies lost or damaged in official …

Copies of the permanent journal must be distributed in accordance with the rules of the senate and house of representatives of the state of North Dakota.

As soon as the laws of each session of the legislative assembly are printed and ready for distribution, the legislative council shall forward the laws to which each county is entitled to the county auditor of the county.

The county auditor shall deliver such publications to such persons and institutions as are entitled to receive them, when requested so to do, and shall take receipts therefor and file the same in the county auditor's office subject to inspection.

Whenever any person is elected to fill any of the county, township, or district offices in this state, such person, before taking possession of the office, shall procure from the county auditor of that person's county a copy of the receipts filed with such auditor by the outgoing…

All copies of the journals, executive documents, and laws which are not distributed under this title must be preserved in the office of the secretary of state, subject to distribution as provided by law or rules of the senate and house of representatives.

During the biennium immediately after publication, the legislative council shall sell copies of the session laws for the cost of publication and handling plus ten percent. In subsequent bienniums, the legislative council may determine and set a price for the copies of the session…

The legislative council may dispose of all volumes of the laws that are ten or more years old, except one volume of each, which must be retained for historical purposes.

1. As used in this section: a. "E-edition" means a digital facsimile of a newspaper print edition which is substantially the same in both format and content as the print edition. b. "Publish" means the dissemination in the print edition of a qualified newspaper or in the newspape…

To effect uniformity, the office of management and budget may compute a standard price on those legal notices which are widely published such as ballots, insurance statements, and official proclamations. All newspapers must use the rates, type size, and column width as shown on i…

The rates or compensation and the method of calculating the same provided for in section 46-05-03 apply in all cases in which publication of legal notices of any kind, proceedings of the board of county commissioners, reports, election returns, and other publications and reports …

Any person, association, corporation, or limited liability company publishing any legal notice or doing any public printing contrary to the provisions of this chapter shall be liable to a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than two hundred dollars and to a forfeit…

In any county in which two or more newspapers having the qualifications prescribed in section 46-05-01 are published, the board of county commissioners, by resolution, may provide for publication of proceedings of the board of county commissioners and of notices and publications …

1. When a legal notice is required by law to be published in a newspaper, the newspaper also shall publish the notice on a statewide legal notices website maintained by the North Dakota newspaper association and on the newspaper's website in a location open and free to the public…

At the general election starting with the year 1978 and every four years thereafter, in accordance with section 46-06-06, the qualified electors in each county shall select one newspaper in the county, or if there is no newspaper published in the county, then a newspaper publishe…

A newspaper is qualified to serve as an official newspaper if it meets all the requirements of a legal newspaper set forth in section 46-05-01 and maintains its principal editorial office within the county in which it is a candidate for official newspaper. In a county in which no…

The county auditor shall place the name of a newspaper upon the primary election ballot if the newspaper is qualified to serve as the official newspaper within the county and if, before four p.m. of the sixty-fourth day prior to the primary election, an application asking that th…

The county auditor shall place the names of all newspapers to be voted upon for nomination as official newspaper of the county at the bottom of the ballot upon which appear the names of the candidates for county offices. The names of the newspapers must be rotated as is required …

The county auditor shall place the names of the two newspapers receiving the highest number of votes at the primary election on the general election ballot upon which appear the names of candidates for county offices. The names must appear in the same place and in the same manner…

The newspaper receiving the highest number of votes at the general election must be declared elected. The county auditor, upon the canvass and return of the vote by the county canvassing board, shall issue a certificate of election to such newspaper, and it shall become the offic…