Live updates from Montana’s 2026 election

Election judges help a voter figure out why he wasn’t on the registration list as a line formed inside the polling place at the Missoula Public Library Tuesday morning. Kathi Olson, an election judge for many years, said the downtown location has seen steady traffic since 7 a.m. After a call to the Missoula County Election Center, the judges figured out how the voter could cast his ballot without driving across town. “The goal is to get everybody to legally vote,” Olson said.

— Katie Fairbanks

A couple of cheery election workers at the drive-up ballot drop today said they arrived at 6 a.m. and people were already waiting to vote. MetraPark is the only polling location for Yellowstone County voters inside Billings city limits. It’s busy. County elections staff grows from five full-time employees to 500 on Election Day, according to Elections Administrator Dayna Causby.

— Phoebe Tollefson

The Lewis and Clark County election office set up a drive-up ballot drop-off station across the road from the City-County Building on the corner of Lawrence Street and Park Avenue. So far, they received more than 100 ballots this morning.

“Everyone who has come up seems to be in good moods,” said election official Eileen Robbins.

The drive-up will be open until 8 p.m. tonight.

— JoVonne Wagner

Provisional election judge Roger Matthew prepares for his next voter at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds Tuesday morning. As voters trickled in, election officials chatted, snacked and worked on a puzzle to pass the time. During the first two hours of the day, only a handful of residents occupied voting stalls at a time in one of four rooms set up for voting.

— Nick Mott

As of 4:19 a.m. Tuesday, just over 62% of the 532,313 absentee ballots mailed to Montana voters had been returned, according to the Montana Secretary of State’s Office. The final absentee return rate in 2024 was just over 70%, down from about 80% in 2022. We’ll be watching whether that decline continues, even as absentee voting has become increasingly common in Montana since the early 2000s.

— Jacob Olness

First reports of election results could arrive hours after polls close in some of Montana’s high-voting counties. State law bars counties that count absentee ballots early from reporting results until their last voter has finished voting. The restriction, which was also in place in 2024, dates to a 2023 law governing counties that begin counting absentee ballots the day before Election Day.

Election administrators have said that long lines of people waiting to register and vote at 8 p.m. could delay the first results late into the night.

— Tom Lutey