The Republican and Democratic candidates vying for Cascade County clerk and recorder are trying to move past the election management issues that drastically changed the functions of the typically inconspicuous public office. But, in different ways, all three candidates were also linked to those past events.
The Republican primary features Desarea Valentine, an employee and supporter of current Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant, who was relieved of election administration duties after a rocky start of her term. That candidate will face off against Lynn DeRoche, another Republican who sought the elections administrator position in Merchant’s stead.
The winner of that primary will face an uncontested Democratic former clerk and recorder who filed a discrimination case against Cascade County and won a settlement.
All three candidates have promised to seek a level of stability in that division, which was dramatically changed under the leadership of Merchant, the current clerk and recorder who took office in 2023. Less than a year into her role, county commissioners removed election duties from Merchant and created a separate department, leaving the clerk and recorder’s purview much less than it used to be.
Rina Fontana Moore, who is running as a Democrat to retake her former position as clerk and recorder, said that she had 27 employees at her office’s peak. In addition to managing elections, the clerk and recorder office managed the county’s solid waste and print shop operations.
Now, none of those duties fall under the clerk and recorder, and there are six employees in the remade office.
“It’s just, I guess, managing what’s left there,” said Fontana Moore, who was clerk and recorder from 2007 to 2023.
The office still serves its major function of recording vital records, like birth certificates, and handling deed transfers for property sales. And the candidates have differing opinions about what caused a recent backlog of work.
While elections management was part of the clerk and recorder’s responsibility for years, it was relatively separate from the rest of the office duties, which include internal auditing and recordkeeping. But DeRoche said that cross-training was emphasized during her time and that around 2011 she worked for a year and a half outside of elections.
“I actually became an employee working in the clerk and recorder’s office, transferred out of elections and in the clerk and recorder’s office,” DeRoche said.
In the June 2 primary, DeRoche faces Valentine, who is the current chief deputy in the clerk and recorder’s office. Valentine joined in 2024 as an auditor and had previously worked in property management. After six months at the office, Merchant named her as the chief deputy. She said that role is largely administrative, working with staff and the office’s budget.
“I like to call it the leadership personality,” Valentine said of herself. “I like to help push people on their strengths and work on their weaknesses.”
Valentine is a close ally of Merchant, who has chosen not to seek reelection. Merchant contributed to her chief deputy’s campaign and told Montana Free Press in a brief interview that she had personal and health-related reasons for stepping down.
“I’ve prayed about it for about a year, and I’ve been back and forth on it,” Merchant said. “And I’ve decided this was the best course of action at this time.”
AN EMBATTLED COUNTY OFFICE
Merchant narrowly won the clerk and recorder race in 2022, beating Fontana Moore by fewer than 40 votes in a recount. After taking office, Merchant looked to manage multiple spring 2023 elections, including the Great Falls Public Schools Board of Trustees and a library levy.
But missed deadlines and concerns about mismanagement under Merchant took a toll. The school district ended up spending about $17,000 on legal counsel assistance to validate the results of its May election. A judge ultimately voided the results of a May 2023 irrigation district election run by Merchant. The Great Falls Public Library was granted a court-appointed election monitor for its June 2023 levy election.
That election monitor was DeRoche, who had left the clerk and recorder office in February of that year. Having managed county elections for more than a decade, she said it was frustrating when Merchant took over.
RELATED
Behind the scenes of a turbulent 2024 election in Cascade County
Personnel and politics converged in a way that added to the struggles many had in casting a vote in the 2024 general election in Cascade County, which joined other populous Montana counties with excruciating wait times for same-day registration. Having been under such scrutiny over the past two years, Cascade County resources didn’t appear to meet the demand.
“It was tough,” DeRoche told MTFP last week. “All I can say is that behind the scenes, I knew it was wrong.”
The Cascade County Board of Commissioners had enough and in December 2023 removed election duties from the clerk and recorder office. It was a controversial move that continued to cleave local Republican politics in subsequent contests like the 2024 county commissioner race.
The county created a separate elections department with an appointed administrator. When it came time to field applicants for the position, DeRoche and Fontana Moore were two of the four people who vied for the job. Using scorecards to grade interviews, commissioners ultimately hired Terry Thompson.
Thompson’s appointment took a twist after The Electric reported that Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen emailed Cascade County commissioners the day before their decision urging them not to hire Fontana Moore “or a member of her administration,” which included DeRoche. A state investigation found Jacobsen’s intervention amounted to political discrimination. In the fall of 2024, county commissioners approved a $52,000 settlement to Fontana Moore, who had filed a complaint alleging discrimination in the election administrator appointment.
Credit: Courtesy Rina Fontana Moore
Speaking to MTFP, Fontana Moore said she felt she was the ideal candidate for the election administrator position after running elections for 16 years. By the end of the saga, she said she ended up spending $30,000 in legal fees on the discrimination case.
“The whole thing was just a gut punch,” she said.
Valentine started working at the clerk and recorder office in March 2024, a little more than three months after Merchant lost election responsibilities. She said that she felt Merchant was treated unfairly.
“I believe in my heart that if Sandra kept the elections office, that it would be a rightfully run office,” Valentine said.
In the fall of 2024, after another tumultuous November election, DeRoche joined the staff of the Cascade County elections department.
AREAS TO IMPROVE
As DeRoche and Valentine look toward the Republican primary, nearly 5,000 mail ballots have already been cast, according to Thompson, Cascade County elections administrator. The candidates are technically colleagues, as Valentine works in the clerk and recorder office on the south side of Second Avenue North and DeRoche works in the elections department in a county building across the street.
Both candidates talked about the need for more training in the clerk and recorder office, albeit from different perspectives.
“My goal is to sit down with each of the employees, talk about their job duties, their roles,” DeRoche told MTFP. “Find out exactly how they were trained, what they were taught and sit back and observe before I make any changes.”
Valentine said that she would emphasize training to help a cadre of relatively green staffers feel more confident and gain longevity in the office.
“I also want to work on more continued education and education training in general,” she said. “We don’t have a whole lot of that right now.”
Both candidates acknowledged that there had been a backlog of work at the clerk and recorder office, including updates minutes from county commission meetings and in recording deeds for property transactions. On the latter issue, area title companies have been at odds with the county, the candidates said.
“There are some frustrations I’ve heard from out in the community, specifically the title companies,” DeRoche said. “The lack of getting documents recorded in a timely manner and other departments, specifically the commission minutes, are not getting typed up and ready in a timely manner.”
Valentine disputed that the delay came from the clerk and recorder office. She said that title companies have been sending incorrect legal descriptions of properties and the county has to send documents back for correction.
“For the last probably four and a half months we’ve been having a lot of issues with title companies, surveyors, bringing in information that doesn’t match,” Valentine said.
Valentine also acknowledged that the lack of institutional knowledge, as well as having one employee on family leave and others dealing with chronic illnesses, have contributed to the office’s workload challenges. She said that after some training, the staff caught up on six months’ worth of commission meeting minutes.
If Fontana Moore wins in November, she said that improving those private business relationships would be a top priority.
“I think my first matter of business would be to work with the title companies,” she said.
If DeRoche makes it through the primary and faces her old boss in November, it will be unlikely that voters will see much mudslinging between the Republican and Democrat on the campaign trail. The pair remain friends after working closely for a decade and a half.
“When you work together for 16 years, 12-hour days, you’re at work more than you’re at home,” DeRoche said. “You learn a lot about each others’ lives.”
Fontana Moore was even more sanguine and said that she’s rooting for DeRoche — even as a potential competitor.
“If Lynn beats me, she too would be very good at the job,” Fontana Moore said.
Reporter Zeke Lloyd contributed to this story.
LATEST STORIES
Federal judge blocks Montana’s AI campaign ad law
A Montana law regulating the use of generative artificial intelligence in campaign ads has been dealt a blow by a federal judge based on freedom of speech concerns. The order greenlights general election advertising that former legislator Dan Bartel and ASG PAC planned to use, but feared being prosecuted for.
Montanans are using AI, but remain wary of its societal impact
Almost four years after OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT, AI is now firmly rooted in many Montanans’ day-to-day tasks, according to a Montana Free Press-Eagleton poll of registered voters conducted in late August and early September. More Montanans use AI — and to some extent trust AI — for general searches, work tasks and writing, than for more intimate functions, like medical advice or companionship. Users remain skeptical of the technology’s broader impacts, too. Only about 12% believe AI has a “somewhat” or “very positive” impact on society.
Broadview area data center sees first phase of construction with roads, well work
Quantica has agreed to use local, unionized labor when possible, under a memorandum of understanding it signed with the Southeastern Montana Building and Construction Trades Council. Riley McCauley, vice president of the council, said they won’t have details on job numbers or wages until Quantica has secured an “end user,” or a digital or AI company, to purchase the facility.
