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May 14, 2026
Sorry, aspiring U.S. House Rep. Mickey Mouse, but Montana voters won’t be able to write undeclared candidates onto the ballot anymore, per a new law passed by the 2025 Montana Legislature, and as reflected on the 2026 primary ballots that began landing in Montana mailboxes this week.
Gone from the new ballots are the blank oval and empty write-in line that, for as long as the election officials who spoke with Montana Free Press could remember, have always been there for voters who wished to write in the name of anyone — or any fictional character — they want for public office.
Instructions for how to “write in a name” are still printed in the upper left corner of each ballot page, but are unfollowable with the write-in spaces omitted.
“The instructions are required,” said Dayna Causby, Yellowstone County elections administrator. “However, a write-in, in order to be counted, had to be qualified by either the county or the state, for that office.”
In truth, many of the write-in names scribbled on ballots by voters have long gone uncounted for a variety of disqualifying reasons. For example: To count, a write-in candidate has to meet residency requirements. Causby notes that Mickey Mouse isn’t a resident of Montana. But even write-in names that coincide with actual residents — a George Washington and a Michael Jackson both currently reside in Montana — weren’t counted in 2024 unless election officials had been officially informed to look for a particular name, or variant spellings of a particular name.
Ballot-counting machines had to be programmed to look for write-ins. When there isn’t an officially registered write-in candidate, the random names added by voters aren’t tabulated, Causby said.
The 2025 Legislature created a law requiring that write-in candidates declare their candidacy at the same time other candidates file to appear on the ballot, which narrowed the window of opportunity for write-in candidates to be recognized. A write-in candidate for the primary now has to register in early March. Legislators also passed a law prohibiting primary election losers from running as write-in candidates in the general election — a measure sometimes referred to as a “sore loser” law.
Jodee Etchart, R-Billings, sponsored House Bill 207, which changed the write-in laws. Etchart tells Capitolized her bill didn’t specifically eliminate the oval and write-in lines from the ballots mailed to Montanans May 8, and election officials confirm that.
Ravalli County Clerk and Recorder Regina Plettenberg said the write-in line and oval were removed through rule-making by the secretary of state after HB 207 became law. The reasoning being that if no write-in candidates are registered as HB 207 requires, there’s no need to make space for them on ballots.
There are no registered write-in candidates on the primary ballot, but there could be in the general election, as write-in candidates have until 90 days before an election to register their candidacies and all the name-spelling variations they want to have counted. If the general election draws formal write-in candidates, the blank line and oval will return to accommodate them.
“That’s valuable real estate to me,” Plettenberg said. “The write-in spaces in a primary or general election can add up to a page.”
Plettenberg said many of the names historically written in by voters have been as cute as a cartoon mouse. Others were offensive. And there have been races won at the write-in line, said Eric Semerad, Gallatin County clerk and recorder. Municipal races in West Yellowstone have been won by unregistered write-in candidates. Party precinct committee positions have also gone to write-in candidates.
House Bill 207 wasn’t the first attempt to apply new rules to write-ins, Semerad said. After the 2020 Senate race, county election administrators successfully lobbied the Legislature to stop requiring that non-registered write-in candidates be counted.
Thousands of names written onto the 2020 ballot had to be accounted for, Semerad said, including some that appeared only once.
—Tom Lutey
Are Senate Supporters Playing 4-Dimensional PAC-Man?
Alani Bankhead was facing scratch-ticket-lottery odds of reaching voters en masse in the final weeks of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
The can-do Air Force veteran and first-time candidate entered April with just $10,000 in her campaign’s checking account. The Helena resident was hitting all the speaking engagements, but she didn’t have much money for ad buys or mailers — at least not as much as opponent Reilly Neill, of Livingston, the only candidate among the four Democrats in the race with more than $100,000 to spend.
Then people started complimenting Bankhead on her ads. What ads? she said. Bankhead hadn’t realized that a newly formed political committee, Progressive Vet PAC, had spent $397,000 on digital ads and mailers promoting her.
Her fellow Democrats had noticed, and they’re crying conspiracy. Such shenanigans have been done before. The Democratic consultancy Hilltop Public Solutions orchestrated a promotional campaign by Montana Hunters and Anglers to boost votes for Libertarian Dan Cox in the 2012 Senate race, to the detriment of Republican Denny Rehberg.
Eastern District U.S. House candidate Brian Miller launched a four-part series of video shorts on Facebook suggesting that Progressive Vet PAC’s real motive is not to benefit Bankhead, but to boost independent Senate candidate Seth Bodnar, who in order to win the general election would likely need a Democratic opponent willing to drop out rather than dilute the race’s non-Republican votes. Miller points out that the new PAC’s treasurer is former Democratic state legislator Moffie Funk, who had worked to elect U.S. Sen. Jon Tester in past elections.
Many of Tester’s former staff are now on Team Bodnar.
“Someone asked me about Moffie Funk. I didn’t know if Moffie was a guy,” Bankhead said of the woman who has worked on Democratic campaigns for years. “When I tell you I’m the most boring candidate on the planet, all I do is campaign and sleep.”
Miller’s videos had a combined 2,800 views by Thursday afternoon. They had been shared on Facebook and by text message by members of the “giddy up” group, a coffee klatch of Democratic Party old-timers whose most prominent member is former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.
Schweitzer, who has endorsed Neill, has also been critical of Bankhead’s familiarity with Montana nomenclature. Bankhead had referred to Montana’s powerful industrialists of the late 1800s and early 1900s as “copper barons” rather than “copper kings,” a rookie mistake as bad as ordering “pastie” at the counter of Joe’s in Butte. There’s no paste in pasty.
By law, candidates aren’t allowed to coordinate with PACS on communications and spending. Progressive Vets can promote Bankhead, but she could no more tell the PAC to stop spending than she could tell it to start.
Progressive Vet PAC is so new that it doesn’t have to disclose its funders before the primary ends on June 2. Organizing late is a scheme that’s commonly used by PACs and candidate committees to prevent anyone from seeing whose money is being spent, or how much money there is.
Capitolized asked Funk where Progressive Vet PAC’s money comes from, but Funk didn’t say. In an email, she said the narrative on the PAC’s website “should be sufficient to understand why this endeavor in support of Alani is so important to those of us who both think she is the best candidate and who oppose the flagrant attempt by Republicans to meddle in the Democratic primary.”
The Progressive Vet PAC narrative posits a different conspiracy than the one being promoted by Miller. Progressive Vet’s website suggests that Republicans are “boosting Neill” with “mailers, texts and digital ads disguised as attacks” — a strategy ultimately (ostensibly) designed to hurt Bodnar.
Campaign finance records show that More Jobs, Less Government, a PAC that spent more than $22 million backing Tim Sheehy’s successful run for Senate in 2024, has spent nearly $599,000 on digital ads, text messages and mailers opposing Neill. PACs are required to disclose the subjects of their independent expenditures and whether they support or oppose that candidate. Those disclosures show that the PAC’s buys focused on Neill are in opposition to her campaign.
More Jobs, Less Government didn’t respond to questions left in a voicemail for this article, nor did their man in Montana, Jake Eaton, whose public affairs and political consulting firm, The Political Company, was paid $132,907 to produce mailers opposing Neill.
The Republican-meddling theory holds that More Jobs, Less Government, by calling Neill “too liberal for Montana” and suggesting she supported Kamala Harris for president in 2024, is driving Democrats to vote for Neill, and thus undermining Bodnar’s chances. Neill has publicly stated that she will not cede the race to Bodnar if she wins the Democratic nomination.
But then Bankhead has said the same, which takes most of the (ostensible) sense out of the Republican-meddling theory.
“Not only no, but hell no,” Bankhead said. “Please, put the ‘hell’ in the quote.”
—Tom Lutey
