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Western District Nail-biter
With September polls suggesting a tight U.S. House race in western Montana, the Donald Trump-backed No Going Back PAC was spending bigly in an attempt to push Republican Aaron Flint over the top.
Election filings show the super PAC spent $743,275 on mailers opposing Democrat Sam Forstag, with most of that spending occurring during a 17-day period beginning Sept. 11. No Going Back spending supporting Flint pushed the September total to $811,000.
Three polls at the time showed the race either tied or Flint holding a slight edge.
The Montana Free Press-Rutgers Eagleton Poll, conducted Aug. 27-Sept. 7, showed a statistical tie among randomly selected registered voters, with 42% supporting Flint and 41% supporting Forstag and a 6-percentage point margin of error. Of the three Western District House polls conducted last month, MTFP-Rutgers Eagleton was the only group that met the New York Times’ criteria for “select pollsters,” meaning the firm meets at least two of three criteria: has a record of accuracy in recent elections, belongs to a professional polling organization and conducts probability-based sampling.
The next poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling Sept. 9-10 for The Bench, a political committee that invests in Democrats running in Republican-leaning districts. The poll sampled 536 registered voters, the largest sample among the three polls, and showed 45% supporting Forstag and 43% supporting Flint. Its margin of error was 4.2 percentage points.
A NonStop Local News poll conducted Sept. 19-24 by American Pulse Research and Polling showed 46% of 314 likely voters supporting Flint and 45% supporting Forstag.
Political analysts took note of the tight polls, but still favored Flint to win. The Cook Political Report moved its rating from “Likely Republican” to the less confident “Lean Republican.” Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the weekly newsletter of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, also moved the race from Likely Republican to Leans Republican.
Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin’s FLIPR, or Forecast with Leading Indicators, Polls and (expert) Ratings, gives Forstag a 38.8% chance of winning, even while showing the Democrat with a slight lead in current polling. (A forecast predicts an election outcome, while a poll surveys public opinion.) The FLIPR forecast puts the likelihood of a Flint victory at 61.2%.
—Tom Lutey
Shots Fired
Seth Bodnar has joined the list of statewide Montana candidates who have shot an object in a campaign ad. And he’s not the first to take aim at a symbol of government surveillance.
In a roughly one-minute video titled “Flock Off,” the independent candidate for U.S. Senate drives over a bubble-domed license plate reader like those commonly used to collect vehicle data. He then mounts a camera on a stump and shoots it.
Flock Safety is a major supplier of automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, and its name has become closely associated with the technology. Networks of government- and privately owned readers can be used to track motorists’ movements.
“Getting groceries? They’re watching. Building a new deck? Going to church? Seeing a doctor? They’re watching. Buying ammo for the season? They’re watching. Now, the whole thing isn’t just creepy as hell, it’s also part of a massive economy designed to buy and sell our personal data,” Bodnar says, before asserting that the information is processed in data centers.
The former University of Montana president is not Montana’s first federal candidate to put surveillance technology in his crosshairs. In 2014, Republican congressional candidate Matt Rosendale drew national attention with an ad depicting him firing a rifle at a drone. Other Montana candidates — U.S. House candidates Greg Gianforte and Rob Quist — have shot televisions and computer screens in ads to protest their opponents’ advertising.
Rosendale’s drone imagery echoed a false claim circulating in 2012 that the Environmental Protection Agency was using unmanned aircraft to monitor livestock operations for water pollution. In fact, the EPA used piloted planes to inspect farms for potential Clean Water Act violations.
The current backlash against surveillance has focused on advanced license plate-reading cameras, including those supplied by Flock Safety. An August investigation by the Washington Post found that at least 50 law enforcement officers have been charged with or accused of misusing the plate readers nationwide. The Post found that many of the alleged abuses involved police tracking former partners, female acquaintances or other women.
Also in August, the Kalispell City Council voted 5-2 to remove $70,000 for a vehicle-mounted license plate reader from the city budget after about 40 residents protested the proposal, the Flathead Beacon reported. Police said the system would improve parking enforcement, arguing that chalking tires was inefficient.
Republicans in the Montana Legislature have worked for more than a decade to restrict license plate surveillance. In 2017, then-Rep. Daniel Zolnikov, R-Billings, sponsored a bill generally prohibiting state and local agencies from using license plate readers on public highways. The resulting law includes exceptions for regulated parking systems, anonymized transportation planning and specified law enforcement practices.
Zolnikov, who is seeking reelection to the state Senate, said he has requested bill drafts to strengthen privacy laws, specifically to require public comment and notification for new ALPR use and to limit how long such data can be stored. A third proposal would limit the use of ALPRs on private property.
State law restricts government use of license plate readers, but it does not prohibit private use of the cameras or the information they gather.
—Tom Lutey
Voter Registration Tips (and Tricks)
With requests for personal voter information circulating online, by mail and by phone, voters should rely on official sources, the League of Women Voters tells Capitolized.
The League’s Bonnie Lorenzen also says voters should check the Montana secretary of state’s voter portal to make sure their information is correct.
“We recommend that they go to voterportal.mt.gov and check their registration to make sure their status is active, that their address is up to date, and to make sure that if they’re expecting an absentee ballot, that’s what they’re down for,” Lorenzen said.
Voters should submit any changes to their registration information to their county elections administrator.
Some of the currently circulating unsolicited requests for voter information are not required for registration, and some may be scams.
One text message making the rounds asks voters to confirm their names. Montana secretary of state communications director Richie Melby said the office is not aware of the text. In Washington state, election officials issued an advisory telling the public not to respond.
Another solicitation for voter information comes from a pilot project involving the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the Montana secretary of state’s office. Melby said the pilot project is intended to “enhance the effectiveness of voter outreach.”
The mailed notice reads “Return This Card, No Postage Necessary” and instructs recipients to check the secretary of state’s website to determine whether the voter’s name and address are correct as printed. The card asks for the voter’s signature and provides space for a corrected address.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission manages Vote.gov, which directs users to official voting and registration information for each state.
Another site with an official-seeming address, VoteSafe.org, also offers voter registration assistance. The site is operated by America PAC, Elon Musk’s super PAC. Election Law Blog founder Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor and director of the university’s Safeguarding Democracy Project, has highlighted VoteSafe.org’s privacy policy, which says voter information may be shared with or sold to America PAC’s business partners.
America PAC promotes VoteSafe.org on Facebook, according to Meta’s Ad Library. Multiple organizations and election officials have posted warnings against using the service.
—Tom Lutey
