BISMARCK, N.D. — North Dakota voters rejected a ballot measure to outlaw most local property taxes, which critics said would have led to dramatic cuts in state services.

Voters also defeated a measure calling for the legalization of recreational marijuana and another that sought to make it more difficult to amend the state constitution.

The measure to end local property taxes based on assessed value would have forced the state to provide an estimated $3.15 billion in replacement revenue to local governments during each two-year budget, according to a legislative panel. The state now forecasts about $5 billion in general tax revenues in the current two-year budget.

Supporters of the proposed cut said rising property taxes were increasingly frustrating to voters and that the taxation system was hard to understand. Opponents said the measure would force legislators to make huge cuts to state services.

North Dakota voters also turned down the measure to legalize recreational possession and use of the drug. The outcome of the proposal wasn’t clear until Wednesday morning. North Dakota is one of a handful of states, including Florida and South Dakota, where recreational marijuana measures went before voters. Two dozen states have legalized recreational marijuana, the most recent being Ohio in 2023.

North Dakota voters rejected past measures in 2018 and 2022. The state’s Senate defeated two House-passed bills for legalization and taxation in 2021.

The measure sought to legalize recreational marijuana for people 21 and older to use at their homes and, if permitted, on others’ private property. The measure also outlined production and processing regulations, prohibited uses — such as in public or in vehicles — and would have allowed home cultivation of plants.

Supporters said the measure would have allowed law enforcement to focus limited resources on more important issues, such as fentanyl. Opponents said marijuana has harmful physiological and societal effects.

One agent testified at trial that the case involved, at the time, “the largest seizure of methamphetamine in the history of the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task Force,” which worked the case alongside the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and Shakopee Police Department.

Daniel Gerdts, an attorney representing Rodriguez Pineda, maintained ahead of sentencing that his client agreed to help a Mexican cartel distribute meth while under “explicit” threats to his and his family’s safety. He could not walk away from the operation nor report it to Minnesota law enforcement because police here “could not protect his wife and children in Michoacán once his deception was detected by his oppressor in Mexico,” Gerdts wrote in a memo ahead of sentencing.

“The threat essentially constituted a loaded gun put to the head of his wife and children in Mexico,” Gerdts wrote. “The foreign handlers enforced his cooperation through required daily contact and by sending their enforcers to supervise him.”

Gerdts described Rodriguez Pineda’s role as that of a caretaker who minded the Shakopee residence and distributed drugs to customers. He wrote that his client “was by all accounts an unknown replacement for the original person whose task was to mind the residence and distribute the drugs to the customers.” The original caretaker’s “precipitous disappearance without warning to the organization’s customers continues to bedevil the investigators,” Gerdts added.

Coburn pointed out before sentencing that, during their deliberations, jurors did not ask any follow-up questions about Rodriguez Pineda’s testimony that he had previously been held captive for several days when he visited his hometown in Michoacan, Mexico. Coburn argued that the story was not consistent with evidence presented at trial and did not make sense.

“The defendant’s abduction story appears to be pure, unsubstantiated fabrication, and nothing about that story in any way mitigates the seriousness of his criminal conduct,” Coburn wrote. “The evidence instead demonstrates that while the defendant was present in Minnesota selling vast amounts of methamphetamine, he was having fun, even offering the informant beer during at least one of the controlled purchases, showing off his new Hummer, and partying with cocaine (which was found in his bedroom).”

Both supporters and opponents acknowledge it’s difficult to pinpoint whether ranked-choice voting changed the outcome of Bloomington races, in part because there’s not a definitive way to know who would have won the primary and competed in the general election under the old system. Of the 10 most recent Bloomington races, six were decided in the first round and four were tabulated using ranked-choice voting methods.