I'm not originally from North Dakota (Pennsylvania born and raised), but I've been here for a little more than a year, and I thought I had the state pretty much figured out. But Election Day has me questioning a lot about how things are done here in the Peace Garden State.

ND is the only state where you don't have to register to vote. All you need to do is show up to your polling place, hand over your ID, and get your ballot.

And sometimes, you don't even have to do that much.

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Two recent polls suggest that North Dakota is a state in a dead heat in the presidential race. A poll by Research 2000, released from the dailykos.com, shows that John McCain and Barack Obama have equal support in the state.
 
Another poll, from the Public Affairs Institute in Moorhead, Minnesota, shows Obama with a slight lead.
 
The survey states that Obama has a 2-point lead, with 45-percent of the participants pledging their vote to him, and 43-percent to McCain. But because the lead falls within the poll's margin of error, the actual result is a tie.
 
Although Obama pulled his campaign offices and staffers out of North Dakota in September, support for him in the state has remained strong. North Dakota Grassroots for Obama, an organization formed after the campaign staffers left the state, has continued to campaign throughout the state.
 
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Allan Branstiter, an Iraq War veteran, full-time college student, and part-time waiter, is running for a seat in the North Dakota state senate, representing Fargo. 
 
Between studying at Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he's a history major, and working at a Fargo-area restaurant, any free time he has is spent campaigning, like at North Dakota State University's homecoming parade.

Branstiter, 25, said there are some days when he'd rather be spending his time with his friends, but that the election is more important.

"I  think we're going to look back at when we're about 50 years old, and we're either going to be very proud at what we were able to achieve, or we're going to wonder what it would have been like if we would have just put forth a little more effort," he said.

Check out a video about Branstiter's campaigning here: http://think.mtv.com/044FDFFFF0098A10B001700993E7D/

And then there were 49.

At least, that was what Barack Obama’s campaign was essentially saying on Sept. 21, when they announced their plans to pull the campaign out of North Dakota.

The announcement came unexpectedly, sending campaign workers in a rush to pack up boxes and move out of the 11 offices scattered throughout the state on Sunday afternoon.

Obama, the first Democratic presidential candidate to ever set up campaign offices in North Dakota, had positioned more than 50 staffers and campaign workers in the state in July to try to close the gap between him and John McCain. Back then, supporters and volunteers in the state were ecstatic that their candidate had devoted resources to North Dakota, and the state’s three electoral votes.

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Usually, political conventions don't draw huge television audiences. Not like, say, the finale of American Idol, or the Super Bowl, or the Olympics. But this year, it was different. 

According to Nielson Media Research, the presidential nominee acceptance speeches at the Democratic and Republican conventions were watched by 38.4 million viewers and 38.9 million viewers, respectively. In Bismarck, North Dakota, crowds gathered in bars, restaurants, and homes to catch the shows. 

One of those house parties was hosted by the Seth family, along with their son, 20-year-old Sanjay. The family, strong supporters of Barack Obama, welcomed about 50 people into their home, including many of the campaign workers in Obama's Bismarck headquarters.  After Obama's nomination speech, Seth's friends gathered in the family's basement to discuss their reactions.  

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Kayla Whitaker had been meaning to donate to Barack Obama's campaign for a while, so when she received an e-mail from the campaign with the note that anyone who donated $5 or more would be eligible to win a chance to meet Obama at the Democratic National Convention, she went for it.
 
"And, it's not like I was going to get picked," Whitaker said. "I mean, Fargo, North Dakota... nobody cares, nobody even knows where Fargo is. Everyone thinks we're in Canada."
 
Despite thinking she had no chance of winning, she donated $15. A month later, the campaign called to let her know that she had been one of ten young people chosen to be "Backstage With Barack" before he accepts the presidential nomination. She and a guest will be flown to Denver on August 26, and stay until the convention ends.
 
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Every year, high school seniors across the country have to make a major decision - go away to college, or stay in their home state.
 
Josh Christman, a recent graduate of Century High School in Bismarck, ND, is leaving the state to attend Parsons The New School for Design in New York. While that wasn't the only school he applied to, Christman, 18, said he knew he wanted to get out of North Dakota.
 
"I made a decision before I applied to any schools not to apply to any in North Dakota, because I didn't want to stay here," he said. "I wanted to get out and experience something else."
 
But for other young people in the state, the decision to stay close to home after graduation is an equally easy one.
 
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Josh Davis, 31, and his partner, Craig Comes, 29, have been together for about 11 months. They each grew up on ranches just over the border in South Dakota. Now, they divide their time between working on Comes' family ranch in Camp Crook, SD, and Bowman, ND, where Comes is a volunteer EMT. 

Davis has been out for almost 10 years, and Comes came out in 2006.

"I was scared to death to tell my family, because we're kind of a small-town, Christian people," he said. "Divorce is just a huge sin, so I couldn't imagine coming out to them."

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In most states, a festival celebrating homosexuality wouldn't draw a lot of attention.
 
But for a conservative, rural state like North Dakota, it's a little different.
 
For the past five years, Dakota Outright, a GLBT community group, has sponsored Bismarck PRIDE Fest, a weekend outdoor festival for members of the gay and lesbian community and their supporters to celebrate being out in North Dakota.
 
"It's a place for people to come together and get to know each other and realize that even in the outer reaches of North Dakota, you don't have to be isolated," said Dan Tokach, one of the founders of Dakota Outright, and an organizer of the event. "That we're all here, and you're not alone."

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In the first week that Barack Obama's campaign office has been officially open in North Dakota, workers have been spending most of their time making cold calls and trying to gauge the amount of support the Democratic party has in the state. 

 
According to the latest Rasmussen report, (http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/north_dakota/election_2008_north_dakota_presidential_election), the contest is close, with John McCain having a one-percent lead over Obama in North Dakota. 

Campaign workers and volunteers such as Ethan Hoepfner, are hoping to change that. They want to see North Dakota, a state that has given its three electoral votes to a Republican candidate every election since 1964, turn Blue. 

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