Montana Secretary of State and Chief Elections Officer Linda McCulloch received word from the Eleventh District Court at 3pm Tuesday that Sandy Welch was withdrawing her application for a recount of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction Race. Welch trailed democrat incumbent Denise Juneau by 2231 votes after the official statewide canvass. “We are disappointed that there will not be a recount, ” said McCulloch.
A group of American Indians from the Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap reservations sued state and county election officials in federal court on Wednesday, seeking equal access to voting through satellite offices. The lack of satellite election offices on reservations, the plaintiffs allege, forces Indians to drive long distances to vote at the county seat, is discriminatory and denies Indians their voting and civil rights under federal law and the U.S. and Montana constitutions. A few of the 15 plaintiffs and consultants assisting with the case gathered outside the federal courthouse in Billings on Wednesday to discuss the issue. Plaintiff Marty Other Bull, a Crow tribal member and registered voter who lives in Crow Agency, votes in person. While he has a greater opportunity to vote at the Big Horn County election office in Hardin, about 15 miles away, Other Bull said many tribal members in Wyola, Lodge Grass and Pryor have to travel farther. “For us to be traveling to Hardin, it’s a hardship for most of us. This is a good step to work together,” Other Bull said.
On October 10, members of three Montana tribes—Northern Cheyenne, Crow and Gros Ventre and Assiniboine—filed a voting-rights lawsuit in federal court in Billings. One defendant is Montana’s head election official, Secretary of State Linda McCulloch. The other 13 are commissioners and election officers of Rosebud, Big Horn and Blaine counties, which overlap the three tribes’ reservations, respectively, and handle their non-tribal elections. The tribal members are suing because the officials do not plan to provide the three reservations with satellite offices for early voting, which got underway in Montana on October 9 and runs through election day. The 16 plaintiffs say this violates rights protected by the United States and Montana constitutions and the Voting Rights Act (VRA). All three counties named have lost or settled VRA suits. Today’s failure to provide satellite early voting reinforces a “history of official racial discrimination in voting,” the suit said.
Former Secretary of State Brad Johnson will be allowed to run for his old office after all now that the state’s political practices commissioner reversed an earlier decision Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Johnson’s name was to be stricken from the June primary election ballot for not filing a business disclosure form on time. It was due by 5 p.m. Tuesday. “I’m delighted,” Johnson, a Republican, said after learning from Commissioner Jim Murry on Wednesday that he would be on the June primary ballot. Johnson said he had submitted the form electronically twice on time Tuesday, but it didn’t show up at the commissioner’s office or show up on his own computer.
Montana’s primary in 2012 is on June 5. Parties entitled to nominate by primary are the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and Americans Elect Parties. When filing closed for this year’s primary, two Libertarians had filed to run for U.S. Senate in the Libertarian Party. On March 20, Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch ruled that the Libertarian Party may not have a primary this year, and that she will print the names of both Libertarians on the November ballot. She made this decision, based on section 13-10-209(2). Before 2005, that section said, “It is not necessary to print a primary ballot for a political party which does not have candidates for more than half of the offices on the ballot in even-year elections if no more than one candidate files for nomination by that party for any of the offices on the ballot.”
Montana’s legislators might have shot down a move to allow people to do all their voting by mail, but Secretary of State Linda McCulloch is taking steps to make it easier for absentee ballots.
GOP lawmakers led the move to squash a proposal to allow vote-by-mail during the recently completed legislative session. That opposition came despite support from elections officials in every Montana county and successful adoption of vote by mail by other states like Washington a decade ago.
However, the Legislature did agree to have voter registration cards to display an option for people to sign up for the Annual Absentee List. McCulloch has now issued the new enhanced voter registration card, as well as a postcard allowing currently registered voters to permanently switch over to absentee voting.
On Wednesday, April 13, I proudly joined Gov. Brian Schweitzer as he heated up his branding iron and vetoed House Bill 180, a partisan bill that would have ended Election Day voter registration across Montana. Hours before the veto was issued, I read a guest opinion in support of HB180. It was written by former…