The Montana Supreme Court on Thursday vacated its own injunction, which temporarily allowed a proposed data center initiative to appear on the November ballot in Butte-Silver Bow County, less than 48 hours after issuing it.
In its five-page order, the court said it stands by its earlier reasoning: that allowing voters to consider the initiative, even if it were later invalidated, is preferable to denying them the opportunity to vote on a measure that might ultimately be found eligible for the ballot.
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Supreme Court puts Butte’s data center initiative back on the ballot
General election voters in Butte-Silver Bow County may now consider a proposed ballot initiative that would require citizen approval of data center development, after the Montana Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that prevented the initiative from appearing on the November ballot. In a court filing responding to the decision, the county said it…
Still, the justices said Thursday, they would not have granted initiative organizers’ request for an injunction had they known that the county’s ballots have already been printed and mailed, with some having already been returned by voters.
The justices said Montana election law does not provide a process for adding an initiative after ballots have been prepared, or for issuing supplemental ballots to voters who have already cast their ballots.
“The situation the parties and this Court find themselves in was entirely avoidable,” the court wrote.
The justices said court filings by the initiative organizers implied that ballots had not yet been printed and mailed. The court also noted that the county, having taken no position on the organizers’ request for an injunction, also failed to inform the justices that ballots had already been printed and mailed.
“Surely it could have taken this opportunity to advise the Court about what Proponents had neglected to mention in their emergency motion,” the justices wrote of the county’s failure to disclose that ballots have already been printed and mailed.
In vacating the injunction, the court rejected the organizers’ proposal to issue separate ballots containing only the initiative, saying organizers had not explained how that process would comply with Montana election law.
The decision reverses Tuesday’s temporary order, which prohibited the county from rejecting the initiative over organizers’ failure to meet a signature-submission deadline due to incorrect information initially provided by election officials.
The organizers’ appeal of a district court decision rejecting their request to place the initiative on the ballot remains pending.
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