Cascade County officials spent the bulk of their Sept. 25 meeting discussing how to handle write-in ballots for the November election, specifically, pre-printed stickers with write-in candidates names.

Terry Thompson, county election administrator, told The Electric that she proactively raised the issue with County Commissioners since she was concerned that at least one county write-in candidate would be distributing stickers with their name on them to voters.

Ballots are scheduled to be mailed Oct. 11.

Ballots are being printed by ES&S, the county’s election vendor, and are scheduled to arrived by Oct, 1, Thompson told The Electric.

As of Sept. 26, there were 40,560 active voters registered, Thompson said, with an increase of 443 voters in the last 30 days. She said a number of organizations are registering voters so they’ve been receiving new registrations daily.

In Montana, local write-in candidates must file with the county elections office to be counted in the race and voters need to spell their name properly, or as one of the variations that are filed with the elections office.

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Any write-in that is not a filed candidate, such as Mickey Mouse or a person in Cascade County that didn’t file the necessary paperwork, is not considered and those votes aren’t tallied.

For the November ballot, there are five filed write-in candidates:

• Rae Grulkowski for county commission, after losing her primary bid
• James Whitaker for House District 22, after losing his primary bid
• Shiva Ayyadurai for U.S. president
• John Metzger and Reilly Neill for U.S. House of Representatives District 2

Grulkowski, a current county commissioner, participated in the discussion on the resolution regarding the pre-printed labels and voted to support it.

Thompson said she contacted ES&S, the county’s election vendor that supplies ballot stock and tabulators, about the use of stickers.

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The county uses two ES&S tabulators for ballot counting.

Thompson said that some candidates may distribute pre-printed labels with the correct spelling of their name that voters would put on their ballots.

The Montana Secretary of State has posted the following guidelines on pre-printed labels:

• pre-printed labels are not prohibited by law
• a candidate is advised to check with the local election administrator regarding use of preprinted labels
• if a county uses vote tabulating equipment, the use of pre-printed labels may not be advisable based on the manufacturer’s caution, and experience of election administrators since stickers may degrade the performance of tabulators depending on the type of label and tabulator, the way the labels are applied and the number of voters using the labels.

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Even if voters use a pre-printed label, they must fill in the oval to the left of that line to be counted.

The SOS defers to local election administrators regarding the use of pre-printed labels, Thompson said in her staff report, and ES&S advised her that “stickers are the enemy” of the tabulators and “it’s not a question of if the stickers will cause problems, but just a matter of time” since they’ll “gum up the sensors and cause problems with the outstacking.”

Thompson said that ES&S “strongly, strongly discourages stickers.”

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After receiving that guidance from ES&S, Thompson asked the county attorney’s office to draw up a resolution regarding the use of pre-printed labels on ballots and recommended that they not be allowed.

“The tabulators represent significant county assets utilized by the election administrator in conjunction with almost every election conducted in the county. The problems articulated by ES&S to the tabulators if pre-printed labels are affixed on ballots voted in the county represent a significant risk to the functionality of the tabulators both during and after an election, as well as the reported high probability that significant costly repair, if not replacement due to
preventable damage, is substantial,” Thompson wrote in her agenda report.

Commissioners, under state law, have the ability to put limitations and restrictions in cases where no provision is made by law to manage county concerns and transaction of business, Thompson wrote.

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In 1928, then attorney general L.A. Foot issued an opinion on a question of the legality of using a sticker bearing the name of a candidate and a printed X already placed in the square before the name of the candidate.

“As far as I am able to ascertain, this question has never been passed upon by our Supreme Court,” Foot wrote, but that in another case, the Supreme Court “laid down the rule that the voter must express his intention substantially as indicated by the statute” that required making X in the square before the name of the person or persons for whom hey intended to vote. “It will be observed that the above statute authorizes the use of so-called ‘stickers,’ but expressly states that the voter must mark an X before the name of the person for whom he desires to vote. In my opinion, it is necessary for the voter to personally mark an X before a name on a sticker, just as it is necessary for him to make such
mark before the name of any candidate whose name is printed upon the official ballot. It is therefore my conclusion that stickers such as contain an X already printed thereon may not legally be counted as a vote upon an official ballot.”

Foot served as the Montana Attorney General from 1924 – 1933.

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In the draft resolution, county officials wrote that stickers are “disallowed” on county ballots.

During the meeting, Julie Bass and Beth Cummings asked whether ballots with stickers would be tossed out and said the county should be prepared for hand counting during the November election.

Thompson said that ballots would not be discarded because of those stickers, but she and her team would separate them so that they don’t run through the tabulators, adding time and labor for the elections officials to have to hand count all of the races on the ballots with stickers.

Bass, said that to avoid stickers running through the machine, “hand counts is the way to go. I do believe we need to be prepared for a hand count.”

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Both Bass and Cummings have been vocal supporters of Grulkowski and Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant, who commissioners removed from overseeing elections last year, appointing Thompson early this year. They also signed a petition that was submitted to county commissioners in 2022 asking commissioners to:

• ban all electronic voting equipment, excluding Automark machines
• voting be allowed with valid identification only
• ban mail-in ballots except for overseas, military, disabled or other qualified persons
• ballot turn in on election day only, with one day counting
• create smaller precincts for voting and counting
• clean voter rolls by requiring all qualified county residents to reregister

Cummings filed a lawsuit against the City of Great Falls last year regarding the legality of its library levy election. A district court judge dismissed that suit and Cummings appealed the case this year to the Montana Supreme Court, where it is pending.

There is also a pending lawsuit against Cascade County, and others, regarding the propriety of the Fort Shaw Irrigation District election that was conducted under Merchant. The portion of that case regarding the West Great Falls Flood and Drainage Control District has been dismissed, according to the attorney who file the suit.

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Commissioners and staff spent a fair amount of time debating the wording of the resolution and eventually voted unanimously to disallow the use of pre-printed stickers, but that those ballots would be hand counted.

Thompson said that since the rules gave her the authority to make a decision regarding the use of pre-printed labels, she told commissioners she wanted the resolution as a county policy to be able to communicate to candidates that they should not create, distribute or encourage the use of pre-printed labels.

Both Thompson and Commissioner Jim Larson said that the definition of a write-in candidate is for a voter to physically write in the name of the person they are choosing for a particular race, not use a sticker.

Thompson said it was an unfortunate situation that candidates might use the stickers but the law doesn’t currently prohibit their use and leaves it to election administrators to make local policies. She said some people will opt to violate the rule and that legislators should adjust state law to address the issue.

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“Why would you allow stickers on ballots at all,” she said. “There’s nothing in statute that says a voter can take a page of stickers and stick the sticker over the top of the pre-printed name on the ballot,” so the Montana Secretary of State’s office opened Pandora’s box by allowing administratively stickers to be used at all, she said.

Commissioner Joe Briggs said the resolution specifically stated that stickers weren’t allowed but it did not state those ballots would be discarded.

Thompson said that not all write-in ballots would be automatically hand counted, but only those with candidates who filed with the elections office.

After voting unanimously on the resolution, Grulkowski went off the agenda and kept discussing write-in candidates.

Grulkowski said that previously elections staff tallied all write-in candidates after an election.

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A former elections employee said that for 16 years that was not the practice and they only counted those who were had filed as write-ins, as required by state law.

Thompson said that she plans to have elections officials look for write-in candidates on ballots before they go through the machine to put them aside for a hand count if they include a filed candidate.

If a voter wrote-in Mickey Mouse for any race, that ballot would go through the tabulator normally and would not be hand counted.

“What if a non-filed candidate can’t win a race? Why are we counting it again? The time it takes to county Mickey Mouse, what’s the purpose? Mickey Mouse isn’t gonna take office,” Thompson said.

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Commissioners also approved an grant application to to the Montana Secretary of State’s office for $8,620 in federal Help America Vote Act funds.

Thompson said she intends to use those funds to pay election judges and volunteers for pre-election work such as preparing the absentee ballots, which includes labeling envelopes, inserting instructions and ballots.

She also plans to use the funds to pay more to count judges on a late night shift, as well as the chief election judge and new lead election judges.

Commissioners also unanimously approved a resolution authorizing Thompson to move elections operations to Exhibition Hall in Montana Expo Park for the November election.

That’s been the standard practice for nearly the last two decades, but Thompson told The Electric that because the election administration was previously an elected position, the administrator could make that decision themselves.

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Since commissioners moved their elections office under their purview, Thompson said she had to officially request moving operations to Expo Park for the election.

The public is familiar with the practice and the election office at the annex is not able to accommodate a large public gathering, Thompson wrote in her report.

Commissioners approved moving election operations to Expo Park on or about Nov. 1-6, giving her some flexibility as needed.

Thompson is planning to follow this schedule:

• Nov. 1: Exhibition Hall set up starts, election office remains open in the annex with limited staff
• Nov. 4: early counting of absentee ballots begins with election department staff and election judges; election office remains open in the annex with limited staff through 5 p.m.
• Nov. 5: Election Day, all election operations will be conducted at Exhibition Hall; the election office will be closed and no staff will be working on the annex;  a ballot drop box at the annex will be available from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.; polls close at 8 p.m.
• Nov. 6: Exhibition Hall tear down begins; election office will reopen at the annex at 8 a.m. with limited staff until Expo Park tear down is finished

The Montana Election Observation Initiative is continuing its efforts this fall and will be observing the Cascade County election, along with 14 other counties.

“MEOI seeks to provide all Montanans trusted and independent oversight of state elections. With funding and support from The Carter Center, MEOI is led by a cross-partisan advisory board of Montanans with previous experience in state government and election administration,” according to MEOI, which is co-chaired by former Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan and former State Rep. Geraldine Custer.

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 In June, the group piloted their observation approach in Missoula County monitoring the testing of voting equipment, ballot processing, tabulation and in-person voting on election day using structured forms to gather standardized information. They observed 19 of 21 voting locations with 22 MEOI observers.

The group is expanding the effort to monitor operations in more Montana counties for the November election.

Their hosting a virtual informational forum at 10 a.m. Oct. 1 to share information about the project and how to get involved. Those interested can register here or sign up as an observer here.