by Montana Citizen

Please follow us on X and Telegram. 

Legislative action is needed during the 2025 session!

Delegation of election responsibility

Under the Montana Constitution, Article IV, Section 3, the Montana legislature is obligated to “ ... insure the purity of elections and guard against abuses of the electoral process”. Delegating election responsibility to the SOS and county election administrators via legislation does not absolve the legislature of this obligation!

MCA 13-1-201designates the SOS, as “the chief election officer of this state”. Among other things, the SOS responsibilities are to:

1. Interpret federal and state election laws, and translate them into polices, procedures, and rules that will guide election execution by the counties;
2. Provide a statewide voter registration system to be used by the counties to register qualified voters;
3. Provide consultation to the counties. To advise, assist, and train.

MCA 13-1-301delegates to the counties, headed by the county election administrators, the execution of elections and the maintenance of the data associated with registered voters.

So, why is legislative oversight needed?

Registration deficiencies have allowed unqualified votes to be cast in Montana’s elections

Dozens of votes were cast in the 2024 general elections that appear to be fraudulent in that they were cast by unqualified voters:

1. Voters listed by DPHHS as being deceased, sometimes long ago;
2. Voters who are registered and voted under multiple voter IDs;
3. Voters who recently moved to or from Montana to or from other states and voted in both states.

There are hundreds of voters still currently registered in all 3 categories. Had these unqualified voters been removed from the voter rolls prior to the election, these votes that were apparently fraudulent could not have been cast.

Why were they not removed?

In the author’s opinion, most county election administrators sincerely try to properly maintain their registration records. But it is not easy! The process of matching registered voters to those recently deceased, or determining that a new registrant is already registered can be difficult. Typos in names or birth dates, variations in names or the use of nicknames, and variations in address formats can and do lead to matches being missed. The third category requires access to USPS information and registration data from other states, which is not easily obtained.

It is unrealistic to expect all 56 counties to have people with the skills and training needed to be able to locate these unqualified voters, even if the SOS provides them with the needed tools that are currently lacking! A simple solution could nearly eliminate this problem! The SOS data people could take on this task statewide, and then provide action lists to the counties, who could quickly revise their registration records accordingly. These lists should be available to the public, for the sake of transparency. The third category is most difficult, as getting access to registration and voting history information from other states would likely require action at the federal level. But clearly this is not a job for the counties.

If this solution requires a change in election laws, let’s get it done this session!

Reconciliation of elections is not possible, i.e. one ballot accepted per qualified voter

The ballot-voter discrepancy that led to the recent county-wide recount in Silver Bow County for the 2024 primary was only discovered because it was so large that it could be found even with the incomplete and inaccurate data currently made available to the public by the SOS. Smaller discrepancies, which, unlike the case for Silver Bow, might have nefarious intent, cannot be confidently found currently.

To fulfill their obligation to “ ... insure the purity of elections and guard against abuses of the electoral process”, the legislature must enact election laws that ensure elections are transparent and easily auditable ... both by the legislature and by the public. This means that:

1. The election records must be complete. All who participated in recent elections must be present, along with their voting status/history.
2. The election records must be accurate. Only votes by qualified voters may be included and the vote status of those who participated in elections must be accurate. No duplicate votes may be included, even those resulting from data issues.
3. The election records must be up-to-date. Counties must be required to update all voting history prior to certifying the elections, so that reconciliation will be possible prior to an election being certified by the state. That is, the data must demonstrate that the number of ballots counted in the election equals the number of voters who voted in the election.

There are serious issues with every one of the above categories in the registration data currently available for purchase from the SOS, and Montana’s election laws are not specific enough to deal with them. There are too many issues, some which are complex, for them to be discussed in detail in this article. However, most can be easily and quickly resolved if the counties and SOS are mandated by law to do so.

Voter fraud is not investigated!

Most votes referred to above that are apparently fraudulent can be easily identified from the existing SOS data. There are also citizen-led groups across the country who have taken on the task of identifying interstate voting fraud. However, there does not appear to be any MT government entity that is tasked by law with the responsibility of identifying voter fraud and bringing it to the attention of the appropriate agency for investigation.

It’s time for Montana legislators to step up and take the actions required to meet their Constitutional election obligations!

‘NO AD’ subscription for CDM!  Sign up here and support real investigative journalism and help save the republic!‘