How the “Overlords” in the Montana Secretary of State’s office removed the write-in candid vote on Montana’s ballots

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Julia Pantalen – Montana resident and voter

How many Montana voters can recall a time when there was no opportunity to write in a candidate on a ballot?

From local to federal elections, ballots have historically contained an oval and blank line where a voter can fill in the oval and write in a name if they were dissatisfied with the pre-printed names listed above. 

Those days are gone, all because of rule-making authority the legislative bodies have granted to both elected officials and government bureaucrats.

This started in 2023 with HB523. The bill required election administrators to count votes only for “filed” write-in candidates. How many voters who exercised the write-in option on their ballot knew or understood this?

HB207, passed by the Legislature in 2025 and signed into law by Gov. Gianforte, was meant to take care of “sore losers” who fail in a primary election and attempt to gain ballot access in the subsequent general election by undertaking a write-in campaign. 

But it doesn’t stop there. It turns out this ballot debacle wasn’t perpetrated exclusively by the language of  HB207. Rather, rule-making utilized by Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen to revise the “Ballot Layout Guide” made possible this fait accompli.

Here is an explanation from the rule:

Printing a write-in line on the ballot only for those offices that have a filed write-in candidate will reduce voter confusion while voting a ballot. Currently, a voter can write someone in even though there is no filed candidate for that office under the mistaken expectation that their write-in vote would be counted. Only having a write-in line for offices with filed write-in candidates reduces the administrative burden on county election staff and election judges. Currently, every ballot with a write-in vote must be manually reviewed to determine if the write-in vote is valid and for a filed candidate. Reducing the write-in lines to only offices with filed candidates would substantially reduce the number of ballots during an election that would need to be manually reviewed.   

Read that again. Write-in votes are counted only under specific circumstances and election officials can’t be “burdened” with manual review of ballots. Could there be any greater voter disenfranchisement than this? These people are public servants, not overlords.

It is incomprehensible that Montana voters simply have no write-in options. Ballots still offer write-in instructions, but there is no oval to fill in or blank line to write on.

We cannot allow this level of suppression to take root in Montana. 

Please contact your state representatives, your county elections office, and the Montana Secretary of State and comment on this egregious injustice. 

It is too late to address this before the primary election, but certainly action can take place before November, up to and including legal recourse.

Legislator Explorer

https://legislators.legmt.gov

County Election Administrators

https://sosmt.gov/elections/election-administrators-contact-list/

Montana Secretary of State Elections & Voter Services

[email protected]

Montana Rules

https://rules.mt.gov/browse/collections/5e1173a6-33c7-4df8-b426-5e0077cfc430/policies/b089b6ea-38fb-47fc-abad-dea7b6a94f55

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