See the post-election postscript at the end of this post. 
If we had a category in our annual Public Notice Journalism Contest for best lede, Jack Dura of the Bismarck Tribune would probably win with this one: “Races for official county newspaper don’t usually headline election years, but a few papers around North Dakota could flip in this cycle.”
It turns out that in North Dakota, when a county has at least two newspapers local voters often get to decide which one is designated to serve as the official publisher of notice. It appears to be the only state that designates official newspapers by ballot.
According to North Dakota Newspaper Association Executive Director Steve Andrist (pictured above; photo by Tom Stromme for the Bismarck Tribune), the process begins each election cycle when newspapers in the state file a letter requesting placement on the ballot along with an affidavit swearing the paper is qualified under state law to publish notices. Many counties have only one newspaper, which results in an uncontested election. In the two counties in the state with no qualified newspaper, a paper in an adjacent county is selected.
“It’s always good PR for a newspaper to have its name on an election ballot even if there is no opposition,” says Andrist.
According to Dura’s story in the Tribune, there are twelve contested newspaper elections on the ballot today, which is an unusually high number. Andrist told the Tribune that this year’s “hottest contest” is taking place in Traill County, where the incumbent, The Traill County Tribune, is again being challenged by the locally owned Hillsboro Banner. In fact, the battle has become so fierce the Banner actually took the apparently unprecedented step of buying an ad in another local paper to increase “name recognition” in a town in the western part of the county that Banner Editor Cole Short called “a tough nut to crack”.
Perhaps the least consequential contest is taking place in McIntosh County, where the two papers on the ballot are both owned by Tony Bender, who prefers to give local voters an option “in the interests of democracy.” Regardless of which paper wins, the County Commission meeting minutes and other notices will be published in both papers, with the second paper providing a 50 percent discount.
“We definitely get a lot of people who call us and comment or ask questions about the minutes,” Bender told the Tribune. “They are definitely read.”
Postscript from North Dakota Newspaper Association Executive Director Steve Andrist following the election: “The ‘hot’ race, Traill County Tribune vs. Hillsboro Banner, didn’t turn out to be hot at all. Trail Trib easily won re-election by a 60-40 margin.
The only change came in Slope County, one of two counties in ND in which there is no newspaper. In that case, the official county newspaper must be in an adjoining county. For many years its been The Herald in New England in a county to the east. This year the Bowman Pioneer, in a county to the south, won the election. However, both papers are owned by the same company, Country Media Inc.
All incumbents won in all the other races.”