Secretary of state sought to sway Cascade County election administrator vote

Maxine Speier With Montana news, I'm Maxine Speier. Last month, Cascade County commissioners capped a tumultuous year of election discord when they hired a new nonpartisan election administrator. But according to new reporting from online publication The Electric, Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen emailed commissioners before they made their choice and advised them against hiring two of the four candidates for the job.

Reporter for The Electric, Jenn Rowell, joined MTPR's Austin Amestoy to share more about the email and the response from the county's commissioners.

Austin Amestoy Jenn, thanks so much for being on today.

Jenn Rowell Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me.

Austin Amestoy So, Jenn, tell us a little bit more about this email that Secretary of State Jacobsen sent to Cascade County's commissioners. That's Jim Larson, Joe Briggs, and Rae Grulkowski. When did she send this email and what exactly did it say?

Jenn Rowell She sent an email to the county commissioners on February 14th. So the day before they were scheduled to meet and make a selection for their new hire, she asked them not to hire Rina Moore, who was the former clerk and recorder in the county or anyone from her administration, which was one other candidate for the job. And she said that doing so would undermine the will of the voters, among other reasons. But she did not specify what those reasons were.

Austin Amestoy Interesting. And I want to remind listeners here, catch them up on the background of this story. Rina Fontana Moore was the former Democratic election administrator in Cascade County, back when that job was still held by an elected official. She was narrowly defeated by a Republican in 2022, and now Secretary of State Jacobsen apparently advised Cascade County commissioners to not hire her for the new nonpartisan election administrator job. Jen, how did commissioners react to getting that email? I assume you checked in with them?

Jenn Rowell I did. I called Jim Larson and Joe Briggs. I had sent an email to Rae and Sandra and didn't hear back from them, but Jim and Joe were both, they told me they were surprised. Jim Larson said shocked was the word he used, to get that email.

Austin Amestoy Yeah. Did they say if the Secretary of State's email swayed their final decision at all?

Jenn Rowell Right. They I asked both of them that and they said that it did not impact their decision. They use, like a scoring matrix when they do their interviews. And Terry scored highest. They told me that it didn't factor into their decision making.

Austin Amestoy And that's, Terry Thompson, the new election administrator, the former head of the Great Falls Realtors Organization. Jenn, did you get a sense for how common it is for Jacobsen or really any secretary of state, for that matter, to weigh in on the hiring process for county election administrators?

Jenn Rowell I called a few people that kind of worked in that realm longer than I had, or covered politics, or had had this job before, and asked them if they'd ever heard of that. And everyone gave me the impression that that was not something that had happened before, or at least not that they had heard of. I also called Yellowstone County because they had in fall of 2020, their hired election administrator had resigned. So they also had to appoint a new or hire a new person. So I called and asked them if the Secretary of State had offered thoughts during that process, and they said no.

Austin Amestoy Once again, reporter for The Electric, Jenn Rowell sharing her reporting with us. Jenn, thank you so much.

Jenn Rowell Yeah, of course.

Update: In a statement, Secretary of State spokesperson Richie Melby said Jacobsen was “focused on working with Cascade County’s new election administrator” and did not clarify if Jacobsen sent the email in her official role as secretary of state.