A Montana law requiring that voters write their birth year on absentee ballot return envelopes was ruled unconstitutional by a district court judge last month. The ruling ended a requirement that had caused thousands of absentee ballots to be rejected during elections held over the past year. But an email issued by the Montana secretary of state’s office to election administrators in early October presented the decision as potentially subject to reversal and warned that “rejection rates could be historically high,” citing general confusion and the fact that the ruling came after ballots had already been submitted.
