Ballots mailed out this week

Editor’s note: This clarifies that the candidate forum is being held Wednesday.

With ballots being mailed out to absentee voters the end of this week, Hill County Clerk and Recorder Susan Armstrong said people are receiving mailers urging them to register as absentee when they already are registered.

Armstrong said the emails, from a group called The New American Jobs Fund, is telling people they are registered to vote but have not yet applied to vote absentee. That is confusing people who already are registered absentee, she said. The mailers are not coming from election administrators or the Montana Secretary of State’s office.

People are welcome to call their clerk and recorder’s office to see if they are registered to vote absentee, Armstrong said, but the letters are being sent to people already registered in error.

People also can visit the My Voter page at http://www.sos.mt.gov to find out if they are registered to vote absentee.

Tuesday is the last day to register to vote and the first day to vote absentee.

Absentee ballots will be mailed out Friday to people registered as absentee voters.

After Tuesday, people can do a late registration and also register to vote absentee, but they will be given a ballot rather than having one mailed to them.

People who receive an absentee ballot, either in the mail or at the clerk and recorder’s office, must use that ballot. They may not vote at the polls on Election Day.

If they lose or destroy the absentee ballot, they will have to vote a provisional ballot at the clerk and recorder’s office.

The Havre Daily News is holding a candidate’s forum Wednesday for contested Hill County races and for local legislative candidates. The forum starts at 6 p.m. in Hensler Auditorium in Montana State University-Northern’s Applied Technology Center. Northern Chancellor Greg Kegel will moderate the forum.

If people have questions they would like the candidates to answer, they can be emailed to [email protected].

The Havre Daily News will start running profiles of candidates in contested races Tuesday.