Sandra Merchant, Cascade County clerk and recorder, has issued a response to the school district asking the County Commission to remove election duties from her office.

The Great Falls School District sent a letter to commissioners earlier this month citing concerns over communication and proper handling of election duties. They asked commissioners to move election duties from the clerk and recorders office to the commission office.

Last fall, Commissioner Joe Briggs had proposed making that move.

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In November, he told The Electric that elected officials shouldn’t be in control of ballot counts.

Briggs said that for as long as he could remember, the county clerk and recorder’s office had been a consolidated position that oversaw elections.

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If the commission were to take elections under their purview, Briggs said he’d talked to the county attorney’s office about structuring it so that any commissioner on the ballot wouldn’t be involved in the process.

Typically, county commissioners are on a rotating schedule for elections as they serve six year terms so a commissioner is on the ballot every two years.

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Last year, two commissioners were on the ballot since Jane Weber, a former commissioner resigned in 2021and Don Ryan was appointed to fill the remainder of her term, putting him on the ballot this year, with Briggs who ran unopposed.

Briggs said in the falls that he would propose to elevate elections to a county department with a hired department head.

Elections duties are not included in the clerk and recorders office under state law and Briggs said legally, the commission had the authority to move those duties to a department under their office.

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Briggs told The Electric this week that commissioners have not have any further substantive discussions about the proposal to move the elections office under their office.

In an email, Merchant said she received the GFPS letter when Superintendent Tom Moore and Brian Patrick, GFPS director of business operations, delivered it in person.

She said that while they were there, Patrick reminded her that the previous elections administrator had signed a contract with GFPS to run their election and he asked her to commit to fulfilling the contract, “which I thought was odd since they were there to ask to have me removed from running elections.”

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Merchant wrote that GFPS pointed to a breakdown in communications and so she printed emails she’d had with them during the election cycle and gave them to commissioners, “including the email from Tom Moore thanking me for the good communication we had had. This, of course, did not include phone calls and in-person meetings or the times that they just stopped by the office when in the building.”

During the May 2 and June 6 elections, the school district, Great Falls Public Library and the Fort Shaw Irrigation District specifically complained about the lack of communication from the elections office.

The elections office, and other county officials, did not respond to most emails from The Electric with questions about those elections. Merchant began responding to The Electric’s emails again in July.

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Merchant wrote that the cost of the May 2 election had been in the range of the average cost of recent elections and any extra legal counsel GFPS sought was their choice.

GFPS also said the ballots were not available when the polls opened on May 2, which The Electric was also told by several voters and several other county staffers that day.

Merchant wrote that the ballots were available but the registers weren’t.

She referred to a section of law that relates to when school boards run their own elections.

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Multiple sources said state law required the county election office to assume that duty when they ran the election for GFPS, as they did this year and for at least the last decade.

Merchant said to allegations of voters not receiving ballots that “the system generates the list of voters who get ballots for each district. We sent ballots to all those on the lists.:

She said a large number came back undeliverable.

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“I do not believe that having elections be managed by the County Commissioners is necessary or positive in any light,” Merchant wrote.

She said that when Briggs talked about the idea last year, that he said it would solve the problem of a person on the ballot managing an election.

Merchant wrote that since at least one commissioner is on the ballot every two years, it would multiply the problem rather than solving it.

“More importantly, it would eliminate the ability of the people to choose who runs their elections,” Merchant wrote.

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She wrote that instead the person would be chosen and appointed by the commission, serving at their pleasure. In that, Merchant she cites a section of Montana law that applies to elected positions when commissioners appoint to fill vacancies, which does not apply to hiring a department head.

Merchant wrote that the elections administrator, as it’s the clerk and recorder currently, can step away during any election they’re on the ballot and let staff and election judges run the election.

Merchant wrote that “Briggs has already taken the budget officer to himself without a meeting, a vote, or public input; now he wants to do the same with the elections office. This begs the question-why?”

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The budget officer is a staff position that was vacated by an appointment earlier this year and the county has been advertising for the position that has been retooled as the county’s chief financial officer since February. The position has not yet been filled so Briggs assumed the duties of developing the county budget over the summer.

Hiring a department head has not typically been a public process for the county other than the health officer, which has more autonomy and authority, Briggs has said in public meetings. The county budget process was open to the public.

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In the letter commissioners sent to GFPS on Sept. 25, they indicated they’d be speaking with Merchant about the district’s concerns.

“I look forward to this since there has been little communication with them on this subject other than what I have initiated,” Merchant wrote.

The letter was drafted by Commissioner Rae Grulkowski, according to multiple county sources. Briggs said that Merchant had not met with him individually or the full commission about the letter. He said he planned to meet with her as soon as their schedules allowed.