ASSOCIATED PRESS
HELENA, MONT. (AP) – Montana’s election administrators are asking lawmakers to allow them to open and count absentee ballots earlier because the number of mailed-in ballots continues to increase.
The Senate has passed a bill that would allow absentee ballots to
be opened starting on the Thursday before Election Day and for the counting of
absentee ballots to start the Monday before Election Day.
A House committee heard the bill on March 20. Supporters said the
sheer volume of absentee ballots means they need more time to prepare and count
ballots to meet voter, candidate and media expectations of when election
results should be available.
Currently, counties can start opening absentee ballots on the
Monday before Election Day and can start counting them on Election Day. Clerks
from Missoula and Cascade counties said counting their ballots in November took
at least 40 hours.
Casey Hayes, the elections manager for Gallatin County, said the
bill would allow his office to be more efficient and effective while
maintaining current levels of security and secrecy.
Election administrators said with early processing, absentee
ballots would be removed from their secrecy envelopes, unfolded and placed in
locked and tamper-proof boxes based on precinct. The boxes are then held in
locked storage until counting can begin.
“In an age of instant gratification, voters and candidates want
those results as soon as possible,” Hayes told the House State Administration
committee. “Allowing tabulation to begin a day early would provide more
complete results by the close of polls on Election Night.”
Administrators said the results counted by the tabulation
equipment can only be accessed by election administrators, and each attempt to
access them is logged, providing another layer of security.
Dana Corson, the state director of elections, said Secretary of
State Corey Stapleton strongly opposes the bill.
“Secretary Stapleton ran for office on the platform of promising
Montana to improve the integrity of elections,” Corson said. “This bill
decreases the integrity of elections” by opening ballots early.
He suggested clerks could come in at 12:01 a.m. Monday to start
opening ballots and begin counting at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, giving them another
eight hours on each of those days to process and count ballots.
Corson argued that while election fraud hasn’t been reported to
him, it often goes undetected and if detected, unpunished.
“The problem I have with a lot of those comments is: How do you
prove a negative? You can’t,” said Bret Rutherford, the election administrator
in Yellowstone County, Montana’s largest county by population.
He said the bill would give his office more time to deal with
ballots that are already sitting there, sometimes for weeks.
“It is sitting in this envelope in a locked room waiting to be
unfolded the day before Election Day or Election Day,” Rutherford said. “This
little piece of paper doesn’t add that much security.”
The bill, which would not apply to counties that hand-count their
ballots, includes fines between $100,000 and $500,000 and punishment by up two
years in prison for releasing results before the polls close. It passed the
Senate 30-19 in February. It still must pass out of committee before going to
the full House.
Senate President Scott Sales, a Republican who is running for
secretary of state in 2020, voted against the bill.