Cascade County Commissioners interviewed four candidates for the newly established election administrator position over six hours on Feb. 6.

Commissioners set another special meeting for 1 p.m. Feb. 15 to review the applications and interview scores and “hopefully decide on an elections administrator,” Commissioner Jim Larson said.

Elections previously fell under the county clerk and recorder, an elected position, in Cascade County.

In November 2022, Sandra Merchant defeated Rina Moore by 31 votes for the position after months of comments and a petition by a local group questioning the integrity of local elections, echoing a number of concerns and conspiracy theories nationwide.

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Merchant’s first year in office was plagued with continued concerns over election integrity, errors with various elections, lawsuits and public scrutiny from across the political spectrum.

In December, commissioners voted 2-1 to remove election duties from the clerk’s office and create an elections administrator under their office. They appointed Dev Biddick, an elections employee, as the interim elections administrator.

The candidates were Rina Moore, Lynn DeRoche, Terry Thompson and Nancy Donovan.

To determine the order of interviews, commissioners drew names out of a hat.

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Moore, the former county clerk and recorder, went first.

She highlighted her experience running the elections department for the 16 years she was elected as the county clerk.

Moore said that the office during her tenure had been a leader in the state for managing elections and had been a model to some counties. She said the county consolidated polling places under her tenure to Expo Park, which wasn’t popular at first, but has become the norm for voters.

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She said consistency in the election processes was important to voter trust and that after every election, her staff would make a list of what they could do better and worked to improve their processes each time.

DeRoche interviewed second. She had worked in the elections office under Moore for years, eventually becoming the elections supervisor before leaving the office a few months in to Merchant’s term to another county job.

She also talked about her experience running local elections and that while she was the court appointed election monitor last year, she heard concerns from current staff about feeling like they lacked necessary training for the job.

Asked what she considered the most important aspect of elections, she said communication.

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“If you don’t have that, that’s where things can go wrong,” DeRoche said, and “getting that trust back into the election process.”

She said that communication should be with the public, candidates and the entities holding elections.

DeRoche said during her time in the elections office, they didn’t have controversial issues with those entities because they communicated.

Thompson interviewed third.

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She’s the former director of the Great Falls Association of Realtors and currently serves on the Great Falls Airport Authority Board, as a city appointee to the joint city-county board. She’s the current chair of Electric City Citizens for Public Safety, a political action group that lobbied for the failed city public safety levy.

She said she’s been following the situation with county elections and sees that the community is divided, primarily on party lines.

Thompson said her experience makes her a problem solver, that she’s not political and is the only job candidate who hadn’t worked in the county elections office in some capacity. She said she has the ability to learn the job, including elections laws and county budgeting.

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She said the most important aspect of elections was that they were fair, open, secure and transparent.

Thompson said she’d invite anyone with questions about elections into the office, if she’s hired, to ask questions and observe the process.

The last interview of the day was Nancy Donovan, who worked as a volunteer in the election office last year and has been a vocal supporter of Merchant.

She works for the U.S. Postal Service.

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The most important aspect of elections, she said was that the public has complete confidence in them and that they’re free and fair.

She said that elections have been hectic since 2020, bringing more attention to them.

Donovan said she’d engage with community leaders and more public explaining the process so the community understands.

“I would try to make myself a little bit more public and make myself a little more available” to the public, Donovan said.