New law requires election officials to reject mail ballots that aren’t signed with voters’ birth years

This fall’s municipal elections will give Montana voters their first encounter with a new requirement to provide their birth year on the back of mail-in ballot envelopes alongside the previously required signature line. The change is a result of a legislative mandate aimed at enhancing mail election security that took effect Oct. 1.

Election officials in Montana’s two largest counties, Yellowstone and Missoula, said this week that the change had already forced them to reject hundreds of ballots in early returns — 411 as of Thursday, according to Missoula County Election Administrator Bradley Seaman, and about 440 as of Wednesday, according to Yellowstone County Election Administrator Dayna Causby.

“It’s a pretty substantial jump,” said Seaman, whose office issued a press release on the issue Oct. 21. He said that the 411 figure compares to 127 ballots rejected for other reasons, such as missing or invalid signatures. As of Oct. 23, Missoula County had about 14,000 ballots returned out of approximately 77,000 mailed to voters, Seaman said (in addition to city elections, this year’s Missoula ballot includes a county infrastructure levy).

As they have done for years with the signature field, election workers set aside ballots with a missing or invalid year of birth and try to reach the corresponding voter to give them the chance to remedy the error. Officials in several counties said voters are typically notified about rejected ballots with a mailed notice and a phone call or email when possible.

Cascade County Election Administrator Terry Thompson said that her office, which mailed out ballots a few days later than some other jurisdictions this year, had only received a few hundred ballots back as of Oct. 23. Of those, only a handful are missing the year of birth so far, she said.

In Helena, Lewis and Clark County Elections Supervisor Connor Fitzpatrick said that his jurisdiction is in a somewhat different position than Missoula or Yellowstone counties, with only 15 returned ballots missing their signatures as of Oct. 23.

He noted that, unlike most other jurisdictions, his office was able to do a “soft launch” of the year-of-birth requirement with the Sept. 9 city primary and school bond election, including a year-of-birth field on ballot envelopes without rejecting ballots that missed it because the new law had not yet taken effect. Lewis and Clark County also sent out a mailed message explaining the change, he added.

“I think that direct mailer has really been our saving grace here,” Fitzpatrick said.

In Missoula County, Seaman said that printing and sending a mailer would probably have cost the county between $8,000 and $10,000. He also noted that his office has added extra shifts to its staffing roster this year in an effort to accommodate extra outreach to voters who are facing a potential ballot rejection.

“As these numbers go up, we’re working hard to make sure everyone gets both a letter and another contact,” Seaman said.

The new mandate, which passed as this year’s House Bill 719, is currently facing a legal challenge in federal district court but has not been blocked by a judicial order for this year’s elections.

Voters who want to check the status of their ballot can do so via the state’s voter portal page, voterportal.mt.gov.