The Nov. 4 municipal ballot will include mayor, two city commissioners, municipal court judge, one neighborhood council and the question of fireworks.
It will not include the other eight neighborhood councils.
Under Montana law, if the number of candidates filing for election is equal to or less than the number of positions to be filled, the election administer shall notify the governing body that the election isn’t necessary and the body may pass a resolution to cancel the election for those seats.
In those cases, the candidate for those positions win by acclamation at the conclusion of the election.
Filing closes for city election, primary not needed
Cascade County election administrator Terry Thompson notified the city on Sept. 12 that she hadn’t received any write-in candidates by the Aug. 6 deadline so the races for eight neighborhood councils met that threshold.
Initially, officials thought the second municipal court judge position also met that threshold, but later determined that elections to retain judges must be on the ballot regardless of the number of candidates.
There are five seats on each of the city’s nine neighborhood councils and only one, Neighborhood Council 3, had more than five candidates file. There are six candidates for Neighborhood Council 3.
Council 6 has three filed candidates and Council 8 has four filed candidates, so the city will have to fill those vacancies by appointment.
Legislative changes will impact city election, filing dates changed
Thompson said by canceling those specific races, it will save the city about $655.75 in ballot programming costs.
The change also cuts the vendor’s time for programming and printing ballots, so ballots could arrive sooner, and it would save time processing fewer ballot styles on election night, so results could be reported faster.
Thompson said that she’s opted not to site support from ES&S, the tabulator vendor, on election day, saving the county $5,400.
Great Falls Public Schools canceled the school board election in 2019 since only three candidates filed for three seats.
Three candidates file for three GFPS board seats; no election in May [2019]
Commissioners could have opted to maintain the races on the ballot despite the lack of candidates, as they did in 2019.
That year, the ballot included write-in lines, regardless of whether there was a filed write-in candidate, and city staff would use those names find people to be appointed to neighborhood council vacancies.
City Commission rejects option to cancel mayor, judge races on November ballot [2019]
Thompson told city commissioners during their Sept. 16 meeting that she didn’t think people understood changes to election laws that were made in 2023 and 2025 and the subsequent administrative rules that are now in place.
Now, if there are no filed write-in candidates for a race, the ballot will not include lines for write-ins.
Only ballots cast for official candidates, including write-ins, will be counted or logged.
Commissioner Susan Wolff said she, “I have grave concern that people are going to think we’re canceling the election. This confusion, I have concerns about it.”
Mayor Cory Reeves said, “I think it’s going to confuse people.”
Commissioner Shannon Wilson said, “I think it’s going to disenfranchise citizens in thinking neighborhood councils won’t be around anymore.”
County elections office updating voter database, some voters receiving letter to update information
Commissioners voted 3-2 with Reeves and Wilson opposed to cancel the eight neighborhood council elections that had five or fewer candidates.
Wolff asked after the vote about changing her vote and there was some discussion of a special meeting to reconsider the action, but that has since been settled, according to the county.
Thompson told commissioners during the meeting that she wanted the public to be aware of another legislative chance, HB 719, that requires voters to provide their year of birth on the return ballot envelope, near the signature block.
Thompson said there was a pending lawsuit on the change, but since it hadn’t been resolved, the county printed the envelopes that are green for the city election that include the box for a voter to enter their birth year.
Ballots returned without the birth year will be treated as those with a mismatch or missing signature, she said.
The county elections office will contact those voters to work with them, but if it’s not corrected, the ballot will be rejected.
“If you don’t like this, don’t call me, I didn’t decide this, I was very much against this. You need to contact your local legislators,” Thompson said.
The elections office has also been notifying voters who have an identification flag on their voter profiles, which means they don’t have a driver’s license or Social Security number on file.
That flag won’t prevent a person from voting, but Thompson said her office is attempting to ensure they have the current information for voters.
In late August, the elections office sent about 5,800 letters to voters with the grandfathered flag and as of Sept. 18, Thompson said they’d received 3,825 responses, or about 66 percent.
Thompson said that Sept. 24 is the deadline to certify the candidates whose names will appear on the ballot and as of Sept. 18, several city candidates had not filed their finance reports, which is required to be certified for the ballot by the Commissioner of Political Practices.
Ballots will be mailed Oct. 20.
The candidates that will appear on the ballot are:
- Mayor: Cory Reeves (incumbent), Jasmine Taylor
- Commissioner: Joe McKenney (incumbent), Matt Pipinich, Pete Anderson and Casey Schreiner
- Municipal Court judge-Department B: Mark Dunn
- Neighborhood Council 3: Eric Peterson, Garri Mauch, Emily Bertsch, Dale Moore, Kathleen Gessaman and Bradley Rieh
The candidates for the eight neighborhood councils that won’t appear on the Nov. 4 ballot are:
- Neighborhood Council 1: Pat Goodover II, Trevor Cummings, Arthur Taft, David Saslav and Abigail St. Lawrence
- Neighborhood Council 2: Andrew Sonnemaker, Ciara Ashcraft, Timothy Croft, Frank Speidel and Wayne Young
- Neighborhood Council 4: Lisa Meyers, Sandra Guynn, Neil Tredray, Ronald Paulick and James G. Whitaker
- Neighborhood Council 5: Dylan Lennox, Thomas Kotynski, Greg Milton, Howard Plouffe and Luella Vogel
- Neighborhood Council 6: Michelle Cornellier, Richard Cornellier and James F. Rickley
- Neighborhood Council 7: Allison Tangen, Troy Lane, Trevor Mikkelsen, Sandra Rice and William Wadman
- Neighborhood Council 8: David Price, Johnnie Scott, Michael W. Brainard and Karen Grove
- Neighborhood Council 9: Amanda Baugus, Barney Danishefsky, Dana Kirkmeyer, Theresa (Terri) Ryan and Judie Suden
