Updated 1:20 p.m. Oct. 31 with additional information on election judges

Cascade County Clerk and Recorder said last week that her office was aware of some duplicate ballots that were issued.

Ballots were mailed Oct. 23.

Merchant said in a release late Oct. 27 that her office had received reports of duplicate ballots from some voters.

She said upon investigation, staff found it was due to a mechanical problem during the process of printing the envelopes.

Merchant told The Electric that the county contracted out envelope printing and the printer tried to catch the duplicate envelopes but a few made it through.

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“If you happen to receive one of these duplicate ballots in the mail, you may destroy it or bring it in to the office. The system will not allow you to vote twice; a second ballot from a voter will be flagged and not allowed to be counted but will be voided,” according to Merchant’s release.

Merchant said that some precinct splits had been incorporated since their ballot layout was the same.

She said ES&S, the county’s ballot printing and tabulator vendor, combined those splits to avoid printing repetitive ballots and that if a voter receives a ballot with the correct precinct but a different split, “don’t be alarmed.”

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“You have still received the correct ballot and may go ahead and vote. It will be counted correctly and attributed to the correct precinct split,” according to Merchant’s release.

A voter in the Town of Cascade sent a photo to The Electric of a Great Falls municipal ballot sent to him in an envelope addressed to his Cascade address.

The voter told The Electric that they hadn’t brought their ballot in to the county elections office yet.

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Merchant told The Electric that her office hadn’t heard of those living in other districts receiving Great Falls municipal ballots but those that do should bring it to the elections office so staff can check and ensure the voter is issued the correct ballot.

In a follow up email at 5 p.m. Oct. 30, Merchant said they’d had a couple of Cascade town residents report receiving Great Falls municipal ballots today.

Merchant told The Electric that staff found the voter’s information was entered incorrectly in previous years as having a Great Falls address rather than a Cascade address. The Electric has requested further details on how a ballot would have then been mailed to a Cascade address this year with a city ballot.

She also said her staff found several names that were entered incorrectly previously so they didn’t receive ballots in this election or previous elections. The Electric also asked a followup to determine if those names would have been caught in the NVRA process her office conducted this year.

Merchant did not respond to those followup questions.

A reader told The Electric that commissioners were looking at taking over selecting election judges.

When asked, Commissioners Rae Grulkowski and Jim Larson said that wasn’t sure and they weren’t sure where that idea had come from.

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Commissioner Joe Briggs said that Merchant had come to commissioners with a provision of law indicating that commissioners should be selecting election judges.

Initially, he told The Electric that he was awaiting a response from the county attorney’s office.

Briggs followed up on Oct. 31 to say he had forgotten that the attorney’s office had already responded.

In his follow up, Briggs told The Electric that the attorney’s office had informed the commission office that “it is indeed the responsibility of the commission to appoint election judges.

Briggs said the attorneys confirmed that “at least thirty days before the primary election in even-numbered years, the county governing body shall appoint three or more election judges for each precinct, one of whom must be designated chief judge.”

That means commissioners will need to fulfill that requirement during the first quarter of 2024, he said.

Briggs said commissioners had never been involved in the appointment of election judges that he could remember and was very surprised with Merchant brought the statute to their attention.

All three commissioners said they hadn’t had further discussions about the idea of removing election duties from Merchant’s office. It was an idea floated by Briggs in late 2022 and again by the Great Falls Public Schools board in September 2023.

Larson told The Electric that he still has some reservations on how elections are being run under Merchant and that he had hoped they would have run an error free municipal election this fall, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

He said that a voter had called the county on Oct. 27 about receiving multiple ballots and that was “disconcerting. Larson said that Merchant’s release indicated there weren’t many duplicate ballots, but he didn’t know if that meant a handful or a few hundred.

Larson said there had also been errors in printing public notices and sample ballots in the newspaper.

He said there still wasn’t much communication between the commission office and the elections office.

The Electric was asked why election supplies were being distributed to the towns of Belt and Cascade.

Merchant said those towns did not choose a mail ballot election and are instead holding poll elections on Nov. 7.

Merchant also told The Electric that anyone who returned their National Voter Registration Act forms after Oct. 6 would need to go into the election office to get a ballot.

Ballots are due Nov. 7.

Sample ballots are available to view on the Cascade County elections website.

For questions about your ballot or elections, contact the elections office at 406-454-6803.