Hill County officials voice support for mail-in ballot bill

Editor’s note:

This version corrects some misreporting of comments by Hill County Clerk and Recorder Sue Armstrong that was introduced due to mistakes in editing by the editor.

Tuesday, Senate Bill 162, a bill which would allow verifying and counting absentee and mail-in ballots earlier, unanimously passed out of the Montana House State Administration Committee.

“I think that it is a great step in the right direction,” sponsor Sen. Roger Webb, R-Billings, said Tuesday after the vote. “… I think it will run smoother next elections season because (the clerk and recorder’s office) can do their job and are going to have the (election) results in a timely manner.”

The bill allows election administrators to verify the validity of ballots three business days before Election Day — the Friday before.

Now, officials can’t start processing them until one business day before the election.

“What it does, is it allows them to prepare the ballots for processing on Election Day,” Webb said.

It also allows election officials to begin counting the ballots a day before Election Day. Now, officials must wait until Election Day to start counting the absentee and mail-in ballots.

“The big thing is it gets results out there in a timely manner,” he said.

Hill County Clerk and Recorder and Election Administrator Susan Armstrong said allowing the bills to be verified the Friday before does not allow counting the ballots five days early. It allows her office to verify the validity of the ballots the Friday before Election Day. Her office will not be actually running the ballots through the ballot tabulator, it will be removing the ballots from the secrecy envelopes and making sure the received ballots match the received ballot reports.  

The bill allows her office to begin the counting process a day before Election Day, however, if they do run the ballots through the tabulator early, it will not run any reports or release any information until the ballots from the polling places are ran through the tabulator and these totals will be combined with the absentee totals, which will be after 8 p.m. on Election Day.

She said the changes would help. 

“I agreed with it,” she said. “I know it will help everyone out and still be a very secure procedure.”

Elections in general will look the same, Armstrong said. The process outlined in the bill will allow the clerk and recorder’s office to work fewer hours Monday night and to help judges with their supplies and check all polling places in a timely manner. They will have less hours on on Election night and be able to get the election results out earlier.

“It’s a very, very good and secure procedure,” she said.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said that he has faith in the clerk and recorder’s office and thinks the bill is a positive thing. He added that absentee and mail-in ballots are important because they give voters more of an opportunity to educate themselves on what they are voting for.

He said that with more and more people taking advantage of the absentee and mail-in ballot system, and the bill was needed to compensate for the high number of those voters.

Webb said that Yellowstone County’s Elections Commissioner Bret Rutherford requested the bill because of the large number of absentee and mail-in ballots his office has to go through.

Last year, Yellowstone County processed 140,000 ballots, Webb said. Even with employees working 40-plus hour shifts to count all of the votes, the results still come out approximately two days after Election Day.

“It’s just not physically possible to (count them on Election Day),” he added.

Webb said he was concerned someone was going to get sued eventually because they were not able to get the election results in a timely manner. Once the election officials begin the process of counting they can’t stop, causing people to work longer hours which could lead to mistakes. He added that even the machines can only process so many ballots and could break down.

“There is just too much to do in the window (of time) that the state requires them to do it in, and it’s just going to blow up on somebody,” he said.

He said that when he first ran for office it took four days after the election until it was official he had won. This year, he said two candidates came to Helena and were unsure if they had won or not because of the delay in the system. People might get concerned something illegal may be happening, but the reason for the delay is because of the large number of ballots that come in, and a minimum number of staff who have a short amount of time to do their jobs.

“It (is) a good bill,” he said. “We are able to help people do their jobs and the information is going to be available like it should.”

Armstrong said Hill County has about 8,600 registered voters with about 5,200 voting absentee, which would qualify Hill County for the election law revision. She said when employees work longer hours there is a chance for  errors due to stress. The bill will allow them to be able to take their time in a more relaxing manner and be able to assure everything is running smoothly.

The hours her office works during Election Day may seem like nothing compared to the bigger counties, Armstrong said, but her office is also open for normal Clerk and Recorder and Election hours the day before and the day of the election, which leads to interruptions and a slower process.

Implementing the bill, she said, they will be able to get a head start on balancing and sorting the ballots the Friday before, which will lead to her office having the ability to process the ballots more efficiently and quicker on election night.

Armstrong said with the additional time they will not be as rushed. They will still be putting in long hours but it will not be all in one night and hopefully fewer hours.

“Our opinion is that this is a great bill. We have very secure procedures and voters do not have to worry about any results being released early,” she said. “It also will allow us to  get results out earlier to the public.”

Webb said that in the bigger counties absentee and mail-in ballots are what the public prefers, however, they have fewer people willing to get involved with counting the ballots than in previous years.

Young people just aren’t there, he said.

Peterson said that the clerk and recorders are great at their jobs and assure every signature and address matches the information they have. However, with greater voter turnout the need to find more election judges increases. He added that the public needs to get involved in their political system to assure it continues.

While the bill was in the House for the committee hearings, Webb said, representatives of clerk and recorder offices from across the state came out in support of the bill. The bill’s biggest opponent was the Secretary of State’s Office, Webb said.

The secretary of state was concerned with the integrity of the ballots, however the method and system used by the clerk and recorders assures the ballots are kept in a highly secure system, he said.

“It’s virtually impossible for anybody to monkey with these,” he said. “I don’t know how much more secure we can get.”

He added that during the hearing several people repeated the absence of voter fraud in the state of Montana.

“To date, there has never been a report from the Secretary of State’s Office of anybody that has had a case of voter fraud,” Webb said.