Push to poll Cascade County voters on reinstating clerk’s election duties falls short

This story is adapted from the MT Lowdown, a weekly newsletter digest containing original reporting and analysis published every Friday.

An effort by supporters of Cascade County Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant to reinstate the election oversight duties stripped from her by county commissioners in December has proved unsuccessful. Petitioners looking to put the issue up for a reconsideration vote on the June primary ballot were still thousands of signatures short of the total required to qualify as of a late March deadline.

The Cascade County Commission voted 2-1 on a resolution removing Merchant as county election administrator in December, leaving her the county clerk but transferring election oversight duties to a non-partisan commission appointee. Backlash from Merchant’s supporters was swift and fierce, with many accusing the commission in subsequent public comment periods of undermining the will of voters in the 2022 election that installed Merchant as clerk by a slim margin of less than 40 votes. Under Montana law, citizens had 90 days to gather enough signatures to put the question of repealing the resolution on the next countywide ballot.

When Montana Free Press checked with the county elections office the week before last, one day ahead of the deadline, the petition still hadn’t met the roughly 7,300-signature certification threshold. Jeni Dodd, a Great Falls resident who spearheaded the effort, confirmed for MTFP last week that last she heard, petitioners had managed to collect fewer than 2,000 signatures. Dodd attributed the shortfall to the suddenness of the commission’s action, lack of widespread awareness of the petition effort and what she characterized as a narrow timeframe allowed in state law.

“It wasn’t that folks weren’t interested,” Dodd wrote via email. “I believe the failure was mainly a matter of timing and circumstance.”

Local elections in Cascade County will continue to be overseen by Terry Thompson, the former CEO of the Great Falls Association of Realtors, who commissioners unanimously appointed to the new position in February.