The Flathead County Election Department pictured on Oct. 29, 2024. (Micah Drew for the Daily Montanan)
One week from Election Day, more than a third of all registered Montana voters have already cast their ballots in the 2024 general election. Early voting numbers, updated by the Montana Secretary of State’s office every evening, show that voters have returned 284,327 absentee ballots to their local election offices, 54% of all absentee ballots issued.
Montana currently has 787,573 registered voters, a 4.6% increase over the 2020 general election and the highest number in state history, tracking with Montana’s population growth during the same period.
During the last presidential election cycle, Montanans cast 612,075 votes, the highest number of votes cast in the state’s history, with a voter turnout rate of 81.33%, a 30-year high according to data from the Secretary of State’s Office. While Montana allows any active voter to register for an absentee ballot to vote by mail, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 98% of Montanans opted to vote by mail. Just 9,497 individuals voted in person on Election Day.
The current number of absentee ballots received by election departments across the state makes up roughly 46% of the total ballots voted in 2020; however, only two-thirds of Montanans are registered absentee this year.
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Golden Valley County currently leads the absentee return rate with 65% of the 420 absentee ballots already returned. Among the states most populous counties, Ravalli leads with 60.5% of ballots returned, followed by Lake and Lewis and Clark counties.
“Our voters have been so proactive this year which has been super helpful. We’ve instigated a manned drive-thru so voters don’t even have to get out of their cars to drop off their ballots and I think that’s been a big plus this year,” Ravalli County Clerk and Recorder Regina Plettenberg said. “I almost hate to say it — knock on wood — but it’s been a really great election cycle for us so far. People have really stepped up.”
Receiving absentee ballots prior to election day helps local election offices prepare for the process of counting Montanans’ votes. Signature verification for absentee ballots takes place upon receipt, and then beginning the Thursday before Election Day, officials can open the secrecy envelope and place ballots in secured ballot boxes until tabulation begins.
“It takes a lot of time to check signatures, scan, separate, process and get things ready to count before election night — getting ballots in early really helps out staff out and helps us get results out sooner,” Lewis and Clark County Election Department Supervisor Connor Fitzpatrick said. “The dream I have is that we’re not all still here well into the day after the election, but we’ll be here until it’s done.”
A new Montana statute passed by the Legislature in 2023 requires vote tabulation to continue uninterrupted until the process is complete, though both Plettenberg and Fitzpatrick said that in the past they’ve never paused counting.
“We were going through and counting until we were done anyways, it’s just that now we have to be here rather than choosing to be here, which can have a bit of a morale implication,” Fitzpatrick said. “Having to figure out people to come in to work the midnight shift is hard, but we’ve got it all scheduled.”
Signs directing voters at the Flathead County Election Department pictured on Oct. 29, 2024. (Micah Drew for the Daily Montanan)
Gallatin County sees staffing struggles
All of the state’s largest counties have exceeded a 50% return rate as of Monday night’s update except for Gallatin County, which reported having received just 45% of its 64,953 absentee ballots.
For Gallatin, which has the state’s second-highest number of registered voters, part of the slowdown is occurring at the election office, where a small team of election workers is dealing with limited space in their Gallatin County Courthouse location and fewer staff than would be ideal during this final push towards Election Day.
“We tried to get a temporary location — we looked all year — but we couldn’t get anything to suit our needs,” Gallatin County Clerk and Recorder Eric Semerad told the Daily Montanan during the weekend. He said several staff were working through the weekend to get to department duties that had been pushed aside during the week while working with voters. “Late registration is just one component of what’s happening at the office.”
Semerad said he’d struggled to hire temporary workers, especially those with computer skills to work the front counter. He said he was working with three different employment agencies seeking more than 40 temporary workers for the weeks leading up to and including Election Day. The department often works to recruit students from Montana State University to work; they are often limited to working around class time.
Another stalwart group of part-time workers are retirees, who are often tasked with the monotonous opening and sorting jobs, but this year “there’s just not enough of them,” Semerad said.
In addition, the election department has a limited number of public facing spaces in the county courthouse, so only a few staff members can work registering voters or updating registrations at a time, leading to long lines at the office during the last week.
On Friday, Oct 25, the Gallatin County election office stayed open an additional hour to process everyone who had showed up to register or vote before the office closed at 5 p.m.
“We absolutely expect to be staying open late each day this week. We cut the line off at 5, but if you’re in line you get to vote,” Semerad said. “We always get through the line. We’re here until it’s done.”
Signs directing voters at the Flathead County Election Department pictured on Oct. 29, 2024. (Micah Drew for the Daily Montanan)
‘It’s busy, it’s getting busier, and it’s going to keep getting busier’
The process for processing absentee ballots includes checking in an envelope, verifying signatures on the affirmation envelope upon receipt, tracking the ballot from its secrecy envelope to the secure ballot box, and from the ballot box to counting. The entire process takes over two hours per ballot, including a multiple point check-and-balance process to ensure accuracy, according to Missoula County election administrator Bradley Seaman.
“It’s busy, it’s getting busier, and it’s going to keep getting busier,” he said.
To help the early voting process, Missoula County has established multiple satellite offices around the community. They’ve held voter services events in Seeley Lake, Lolo, Frenchtown and at the University of Montana. A satellite location at Gray Wolf Peak Casino in Evaro will be staffed Oct. 29, Nov. 2 and Election Day.
“We’ve been working on this for the last couple of months, planning for enough staff to work these events,” Seaman said. “We pride ourselves on making voting as easy on the voters as possible. Late registration allows voters the chance to register and cast ballots in person, but it’s a large county, so we try to go to the voters. We know that everyone we serve now is someone who isn’t in line on Tuesday, which will drastically speed up our process on Election Day.”
Election officials urge anyone with questions about their voter registration to visit Montana’s online voter portal and visit their local election office to register or make any changes as soon as possible.
“Check online, confirm your information, and then if you need to make an update, come in now,” Seaman said. “The wait could be as little as 10 minutes today, but on Election Day it might be upwards of three hours.”
Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen sent out a reminder today for all absentee voters who have not returned their ballots yet to deliver them in person to ensure that they are received, signatures verified, and prepared for counting. Ballots must be voted and delivered by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5.
Secretary Jacobsen reminds absentee voters that they can track the status of their absentee ballot by visiting VoteMT.gov/voter-info. The status of an absentee voter’s status may include:
SENT: Your county has mailed your absentee ballot packet.
RECEIVED: Your county has received your voted absentee ballot.
ACCEPTED: Your signature was verified and your ballot will be counted during tabulation.