The majority of Gallatin County voters did not agree with the rest of the state’s decision Thursday to elect Republican candidate Greg Gianforte to the lone congressional seat, according to election results on the secretary of state’s website. Final results show the county was in favor of Cut Bank Democratic candidate Rob Quist, who earned a 14-point win in the Republican candidate’s backyard. Libertarian candidate Mark Wicks had 4 percent of the vote in Gallatin County. In total, Gallatin had 76,633 registered voters, according to the secretary of state’s website. Charlotte Mills, clerk and recorder for Gallatin County, said 35,491 absentee ballots were cast and a little more than 6,000 voters went to the polls.
Mills said people who had absentee ballots — but went to a polling place to vote — had to vote with provisional ballots.
“We have 602 provisional ballots that we have to investigate to see if we can count those or not,” Mills said. “The ones that can be counted will be processed and counted on May 31.”
Elections in November saw 516,901 of the 694,370 registered voters cast their ballots. Although more Montanans registered to vote in this special election, fewer actually turned out.
Full Article: Most Montanans had voted before Gianforte incident with reporter | Politics | bozemandailychronicle.com.