Polls closed at 8 p.m. Nov. 4 in Cascade County in the 2025 municipal election.

As of 8:40 a.m. Nov. 5, all ballots had been processed.

As of 7:50 p.m., the Cascade County elections office had issued 31,019 ballots.

These are the last batch of preliminary results but won’t be considered official until the county canvass.

County elections officials accepted 16,449 ballots, for a 53 percent voter turnout, according to Terry Thompson, Cascade County elections supervisor.

Elections staff rejected 329, or two percent, of ballots for:

• 69, or 21 percent, for no signature
• 92, or 28 percent, for mismatched signature
• 169, or 51 percent, for no birth year or mismatched birth year

Those ballots missing signatures or birth years were contacted by the elections office and have until 5 p.m. Wednesday to correct the issue for their ballot to be accepted.

Thompson said that they were initially concerned about low voter turnout, but had a steady stream of voters on Tuesday returning their ballots or registering to vote that didn’t let up til around 7 p.m.

For comparison:

• about 15,173 voted in the November 2023 when the public safety levy was on the city ballot
• 16,872 of 33,641 eligible voters, or 41 percent, in the June 2023 city election for the library levy
• in 2021, about 29,000 ballots were issued and 13,976 ballots returned
• allowing chickens in the city limits was on the 2017 ballot and failed by a vote of 6,646 against to 6,040 in favor

Thompson said she implemented a new process for this election for greater tracking and accountability of ballots that rankled some since it took more time.

She observed the primary election in Lewis and Clark County over the summer and after some staff turnover and legislative changes, decided to implement a process modeled after that county.

Thompson said the process took longer and she will make some adjustments, but was confident in the numbers.

Her process included auditing each batch of 25 ballots after their scanned in to ensure they’re placed in the right trays and precincts to catch any issues earlier in the process.

Elections staff can start removing ballots from secrecy envelopes the Thursday before an election, but Thompson said that’s not the practice in Cascade County and she prefers election judges do that task.

Thompson said the new process takes longer and she knows that frustrated some candidates, but that it will be refined and “would hope that they would want accurate numbers.”

Election judges started processing ballots at Expo Park around noon on Nov. 4 and had been in the elections office daily since about Oct. 22 auditing staff work with ballots.

Thompson said she encourages voters to provide a phone number or email address with their voter registration so if there are any issues with their ballot, election officials can contact them more quickly to resolve it.

Great Falls

Mayor

Cory Reeves (incumbent): 11,635

Jasmine Taylor: 4,410

Commission (top two vote getters win)

Pete Anderson: 5,241

Joe McKenney (incumbent): 8,747

Matt Pipinich: 5,608

Casey Schreiner: 8,567

Municipal Judge

Retain Mark Dunn

Yes: 13,380

No: 1,675

Neighborhood Council 3

Emily Bertsch: 2,064

Kathleen Gessaman: 2,005

Garri Mauch: 1,722

Dale Moore: 1,617

Eric Peterson: 2,211

Bradley Riehl: 1,777

Fireworks

Yes (to further limit fireworks in city limits): 8,766

No (keep as is): 7,288

Belt

Alderman Ward 2

Sally Miller: 13

Robert Williams: 15