How did absentee voting become the norm in Montana?

Absentee ballots for Montana’s 2026 general election begin going out Friday, Oct. 9, meaning many voters will have their ballots in hand by the beginning of next week.

Under Montana law, “absentee voting” covers more than casting a ballot through the mail. It also includes in-person voting before Election Day. 

Absentee voting has evolved over the last two decades from an option used by fewer than a quarter of Montana voters to the method by which the majority of the state’s ballots are cast.

In the 2004 general election, about 22% of Montana ballots were cast absentee, according to data from the Montana secretary of state. By 2010, the absentee share of the share was approaching 50%. By 2018, nearly three-quarters of ballots were cast through the state’s absentee voting system.

That growth tracked with changes in state election law. Historically, absentee voting was intended for use by voters who expected to be unable to vote in person on Election Day due to travel, disability or other circumstances, and voters generally had to request an absentee ballot one election at a time. Montana expanded that access with 1999’s Senate Bill 140, which established “no-excuse” absentee voting, allowing voters to request an absentee ballot without providing a reason. In 2005, lawmakers expanded the system again with Senate Bill 88, which allowed voters to sign up once to automatically receive absentee ballots in future elections. 

Mail voting (as legally distinct from absentee voting) reached a peak in 2020, when 97.7% of Montana voters voted by mail.

The 2020 election was an exception to Montana’s usual election system because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In deference to public health concerns, then-Gov. Steve Bullock issued a directive allowing counties to conduct the November election as a mail-ballot election (while requiring the continued option of in-person voting). Unlike ordinary absentee voting, in which voters receive mailed ballots only by request, a mail-ballot election provides mailed ballots to all active registered voters. Forty-five of the state’s 56 counties, representing more than 94% of registered voters, chose that option, mailing ballots to registered voters. 

Montana returned to its usual polling-place-plus-absentee system statewide after 2020. The share of ballots associated with absentee or mail voting fell to approximately 80% in 2022, and to about 70% in 2024.

Figures for 2020, 2022 and 2024 come from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) biennial survey of state and local election officials.

And the 2022 and 2024 figures come with a caveat. Figures for those election years are approximate. Montana election officials told EAC that records showing who returned an absentee ballot do not always match the number of ballots ultimately counted, because ballots are separated from identifying information before they are counted. Montana Free Press calculated the 2022 and 2024 percentages using absentee or mail-ballot totals reported to the EAC and statewide turnout.