Cascade County Commissioners met with their interim election administrator during a Jan. 23 special meeting about the upcoming school elections.

Commissioners planned to discuss the Great Falls Public Schools and Sun River Valley Schools, which both have elections in May.

Dev Biddick, the commission appointed interim election administrator, thanked Superintendent Tom Moore and Business Operations Manager Brian Patrick for their cooperation in elections.

GFPS officials said they were unaware of the county meeting about their election until asked about it by The Electric last week.

She said that she had looked in Elect Montana, the state voter registration system, and found that about two thirds of actively registered voters requested absentee ballots.

County posts election office positions

The group spent most of their time discussing the cost effectiveness of mail elections versus poll elections.

Commissioner Jim Larson said that GFPS is billed for the costs associated with their election and that they had requested a mail ballot election.

Biddick said she wanted to honor voter requests by running the election as both poll and mail.

Patrick of GFPS asked if she had any analysis of those costs.

She said no.

County, GFPS officials discuss May school election

Commissioner Rae Grulkowski said that they had prior year invoices, but those costs would be outdated.

She said that commissioners needed to set those fees and “I don’t think we could even evaluate what we’d charge right now.”

Grulkowski said that a mail ballot is more labor intensive and a poll election still mails ballots to those who select absentee.

“I question labor and efficiency and our ability to get it done,” Grulkowski said.

Commissioner Joe Briggs asked Biddick how many voters were eligible for the GFPS election.

County appoints Biddick as election administrator

Biddick said she thought it was about 18,000, but didn’t have the exact numbers during the meeting, which had been scheduled for last week, but moved to Jan. 23.

Briggs said if they have to mail 67 percent of ballots anyway to voters who opt to vote absentee, then the cost to mail the additional ballots is likely not substantially more.

Larson said GFPS asked for a mail ballot and they pay those costs.

Moore said that in 2008, the county elections office approached GFPS wanting to move from a poll to a mail ballot election since it was more cost effective and efficient.

He said at first, the board wasn’t in favor, but has since done mail ballots for school elections and have been accustomed to those costs and processes.

County officials continuing discussion on moving election duties

Moore said that they’ve tried to work with the elections office on what’s the best and most effective way to run an election, but their current contract is based on the historical relationship that they’ve had with the county elections office.

Briggs said he doubts that now is the time to do that analysis and believed they should move forward with the mail ballot as GFPS requested and track financials carefully this year to do cost analysis.

Biddick said they had the costs of the November municipal election that was done by mail and could use those to compare.

The number of registered voters for that election is typically smaller than the GFPS election, which includes some voters outside the city limits.

The city clerk told The Electric that as of Jan. 23, they still had not received their election invoice from the county elections office.

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Grulkowski said that the elections office has other things to attend to such as redistricting, petitions and election judge training.

Carey Ann Haight, deputy county attorney, asked for those timelines.

Grulkowski said one petition was supposed to be completed already and that one needed to be done by March.

She asked Biddick when the redistricting voter registration cards needed to be done.

Biddick said she didn’t know but believed it to be sometime in February.

Patrick said that the GFPS board had asked for a mail ballot election as they have for about 16 years.

He said it would be helpful to have cost analysis for the board going forward to make those decisions for future elections.

GFPS preparing for next election

Moore said it would benefit the taxpayer to do some cost analysis and that their costs had been consistent up until the 2023 election, but that cost wasn’t too far off the estimate.

Grulkowski said that the county legal department had approved the school board’s election invoice.

Haight said that she didn’t recall the legal department issued any opinion about that invoice.

Later in the meeting, Patrick said there was some question as to the GFPS invoice and whether they were charged correctly or undercharged by the elections department and welcomed analysis of those costs.

Commissioners asked Biddick to gather some costs comparisons and staff to draft a resolution on election costs that will be considered during another special meeting on Jan. 29.

Commissioners scheduled another meeting with GFPS for Jan. 30 to review the cost estimates for their election.

Commissioners were also set to discuss the Sun River Valley Schools election, which would also be in May.

No one from that district attended the meeting.

Belinda Klick, the Sun River school district business manager, told The Electric that she was unaware of the Jan. 23 meeting about their election. She said she was out of the office on Tuesday but would follow up with The Electric this week.

The district had emailed the county elections office before the holidays about the county conducting their election.

Biddick said she responded with information about needing a resolution.

She said she hadn’t heard back and asked commissioners if she should call Sun River or follow up by email.