Butte-Silver Bow’s election head Tuesday told state lawmakers human error led to a miscount in the county’s June primary election. Officials last month completed a full recount of the vote.
Butte’s recount was ordered after election officials determined around 1,100 more votes had been recorded than the number of ballots received by the county.
Linda Sajor-Joyce is Butte-Silver Bow’s Elections Clerk. She told state lawmakers on a special committee Tuesday the miscount was due to election workers accidentally including data from a pre-election test of voting machines in the final count.
“We inadvertently loaded the memory stick that had our public test data,” Sajor-Joyce said.
Counties run public tests of voting machines before elections. Sajor-Joyce says that data was accidentally left on a vote-counting computer, instead of being erased before the election.
Butte’s recount did not change the outcome of any race for statewide office or the Legislature.
Lawmakers formed a special Senate committee to investigate reasons for the recount and said they want to prevent it from happening again.
Sajor-Joyce suggests increasing training for election workers in handling data and working with voting machines.
“I think another thing that needs to happen is that there be more training for people so they know what’s available there. Instead of being ‘download the manual, it’s only 800 pages,’” Sajor-Joyce said.
The Senate Select Committee on Elections will consider possible changes to Montana election law ahead of the 2025 legislative session.
