ACLU says secretary of state still has wrong election information up

ACLU of Montana Thursday accused Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen of still having inaccurate information out about Tuesday’s election, and said in a tweet it demanded she correct polling locations around the state.

“Confirm your polling location with your local elections administrator before going out to vote,” the tweet said.

The state Democratic party said in a release Friday it conducted an audit on the website of the Secretary of State, the top elections official in Montana, and found numerous inaccuracies and missing or wrong addresses. A majority of the inaccurate precincts are in predominantly Native communities and serve Native voters, the release said, with errors including in Blaine and Chouteau counties.

The counties for which inaccurate information was listed included a disproportionate number of Indigenous and rural communities, where a long drive to a wrong or nonexistent polling location could prevent Montanans from being able to exercise their right to vote.

The release said the location for for the polling location in the Chouteau County Courthouse is not listed.

Candidates, parties, and voting advocates have been directing voters to the Secretary of State’s MyVoterPage to find accurate information about their polling locations for months, the release said. For many voters in these counties, the information they find on MyVoterPage is simply wrong. 

“These are not simply accounting errors, this is a pattern of misinformation which predominantly harms Native voters,” Sheila Hogan, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party, said in the release. “Indigenous communities have faced deliberate barriers to voting this year — and the state’s highest elections’ administrator has not only pushed out inaccurate and misleading voting information, she has deliberately failed to correct the mistakes when they’re pointed out. This is simply unacceptable.” 

The release said that, as of 12:30 p.m. Friday, Jacobsen's office had not corrected the inaccuracies.

“With four days until Election Day, we recommend voters go to (http://VoteinMT.org) for accurate voting information,” the release said.

People can call their local elections administrator — in their county clerk and recorder’s office — to find out more about their polling place and about in which district they vote.