Cascade County commissioners Wednesday will attempt for a second time to certify municipal election results from earlier this month. County officials are sorting through ballot counting discrepancies.
Last week, commissioners declined to certify city elections in Great Falls, Cascade and Belt.
Cascade County commissioner Joe Briggs said election administrator Sandra Merchant was unable to explain why county vote tabulators counted dozens of ballots more than were accepted into the state database.
“Hopefully, it has to do with either this is not the correct report that I’m looking at or there was data not entered for the people who voted in person,” Briggs told MTPR. “I don’t know yet.”
Commissioners voted to postpone the canvass until Merchant was able to explain the discrepancy. Neither Merchant nor commission chair Rae Grulkowski responded to a request for comment.
It’s unclear if commissioners will vote to certify the elections Wednesday.
Cascade County has already blown past a two-week deadline imposed by state law. It’s not clear if the county will face any penalties.
Jasmine Taylor is a member of a citizen group monitoring the county elections office. The Election Protection Committee is pushing commissioners to remove election duties from Merchant’s office before next year’s federal elections.
“At that point, there’s going to be campaigns with millions of dollars involved,” Taylor said. “And, we’re going to be facing more lawsuits.”
The elections department is embroiled in two lawsuits from an election earlier this year alleging mistakes in ballot distribution.
- Secretary of state sought to sway Cascade County election administrator vote
- Cascade County commissioners choose a new election administrator
- Cascade County appoints interim elections administrator
- Cascade County remains without an elections administrator
- Cascade County Commission votes to shift election duties to a nonpartisan administrator
- Cascade County Commission vote could strip election duties from embattled clerk & recorder
