New voting law cost counties more money, added work for staff, blocked ballots

Jenna Martin, Daily Montanan, 11/26/25

A new law passed in the 2025 Montana legislative session required voters to add their birth year to their ballots for the November 2025 municipal elections. 

While the Montana Secretary of State touted “only one percent” of ballots rejected due to missing or mismatched birth year, the individual county statistics show a different story, adding extra costs and labor to counties across the state as they worked to resolve the rejected ballots. 

“663 rejected ballots is definitely an uptick,” said Flathead County Election Administrator Debbie Pierson, pointing out that the voters of Flathead County reduced the number of rejected ballots due to signature mismatch by 50% when compared to the school district election that took place earlier this year. 

“The city council election only had 198 ballots rejected due to signature versus 391 due to signature rejection in the school board race,” Pierson said. “Most of our increase (in rejected ballots) this time came from birth year.” 

“The law requires us to reach out to every person whose ballot is rejected in the most expedient method possible,” explained Missoula County Deputy Elections Administrator Nathan Coyan. “And so what we do to cover everyone is every person whose ballot is rejected gets a letter at the very least.”

Of Missoula County’s initial 1,090 rejected ballots, 694 (64%) were due to errors in birth year, costing the county an additional $513 on letters sent to voters. In Gallatin County, 76% of their initial 820 rejected ballots were due to birth year, costing the county an additional $463 on letters. Yellowstone County spent $851 on letters due to the same issue and Flathead County spent $215. In total, counties across Montana spent a little more than $2,600 on letters to voters whose ballots were rejected due to birth year. 

Some counties, like Lewis and Clark, ran an early information campaign ahead of the general election, using the primary election as an opportunity to give voters a test-run with the new ballot requirement. 

Lewis and Clark County Elections Division Supervisor Connor Fitzpatrick explained there were two parts to their strategy: First, a “soft launch,” where voters received inserts with new instructions in their ballot packets explaining the birth year requirement, as well as a ballot following the new template sent out by the Secretary of State that voters would use in November general election. 

“We weren’t checking birth year for September because it wasn’t in play yet,” explained Fitzpatrick. “But we wanted to get them visually used to the thing. We were like, ‘Hey, that is going to kick into place Oct. 1.’”

The second step was a mailer sent to each address involved in the election for the city of Helena and the city of East Helena. 

“That was sent strategically a week before ballots were mailed out,” said Fitzpatrick.

The total cost of the campaign was $2,020.48, and resulted in Lewis and Clark having one of the lowest rejected ballot rates among larger counties in the state, at only 0.97%. 

     Staff Labor

In addition to letters and early campaigns to notify voters of the upcoming changes, were supplementary staff costs that many counties found difficult to estimate. 

“It took me all day, all of my days, from when we started,” said Cascade County Elections Specialist Gretchen Yowell. “I did them in batches and I would call daily, and go through every single thing they (the voters) had ever given us to try to contact them.”

Cascade County initially had 547 rejected ballots, 305 (56%) due to birth year. They resolved all rejected ballots but 309.

“We filtered them out by what was missing so we could see what was missing first. Birth year was the first thing I could tackle, and then we could specify signature mismatches. And once the birth year was verified we sent them back through the process,” explained Yowell. “And it takes a minute, because everything has to go into the system, so that way if someone goes on the SOS website they can see it has been rejected.”

Missoula County couldn’t estimate the exact cost, but Coyan reported the effort to resolve ballots took up the majority of staff time. 

“It became the project that everyone was working on,” said Coyan. “Anyone who was available got pulled into it. Even I was working on it. It was crazy.” 

Yellowstone County Elections Administrator Dayna Causby estimated additional staff costs at $3,500, but emphasized this was only for temporary workers and didn’t include the time full-time staff spent away from their usual designated tasks to focus on resolving rejected ballots.

“That was one of the main reasons that we decided to use a ballot drop-off location, because of the birth year requirement and trying to reduce the number of ballots that were rejected,” said Causby. “You were hoping that you could catch people as they were dropping it off and point out the birth year is missing.”

Of Yellowstone County’s initial 1,381 rejected ballots, 1150 (83%) were due to birth year errors. All but 624 ballots were resolved, with 473 (76%) of those remaining due to birth year. 

Counties with smaller municipal elections utilized local connections to contact voters whose ballots had been rejected. Sweetgrass County, for example, had 35 rejected ballots, 31 (89%) due to birth year, but were able to reach most people by phone, ending with only six unresolved ballots. 

Treasure County, which had 20 ballots initially rejected, all due to birth year, ended with all ballots resolved. 

“Through friends and family and the phonebook we were able to get them all in here and write their birth year on the ballot. I was even able to get ahold of someone’s grandmother to get them in,” said Treasure County Elections Administrator Dani Erickson. “Our citizens are really good about it. They answer the phone and come in right away.” 

     The Larger Underlying Cost

In his testimony of House Bill 719, sponsor Rep. Braxton Mitchell, R-Columbia Falls, claimed the bill was a “cleanup bill,” the purpose of which was, “To make sure our elections are more secure while maintaining accessibility for voters. By adding an additional verification step we can help prevent fraud, reduce clerical errors and ensure every legally cast vote is counted correctly.” 

Yet ensuring every legally cast vote is counted is exactly what the law may have prevented. 

Even in Ravalli County, Elections Administrator Regina Plettenberg, who testified in support of HB 719 in February of this year, claimed there was no marked increase in the number of ballots rejected, yet confirmed 47% of Ravalli County’s remaining unresolved ballots were due to errors in birth year. 

The largest cost to Montana taxpayers however, may still be adding up.

A lawsuit brought by Big Sky 55+ and Disability Rights Montana in May of this year claims the new law disenfranchises elderly and disabled voters. Should Big Sky 55+ and Disability Rights Montana be successful in their lawsuit, it will add to the ever expanding demand on Montana taxpayers. 

“The state has spent millions in taxpayer dollars on litigation costs defending unconstitutional bills passed by the legislature,” said Heather O’Loughlin, Executive Director of the Montana Budget and Policy Center. “Not only do these laws create barriers to voting, they also add significant costs to the state.”

In every session, the Legislature passes supplemental appropriations in House Bill 3 which covers unexpected state agency costs accrued in the previous two fiscal years. Lawmakers also pass HB 2 every session – the General Appropriations Act – which adjusts the state’s budget going forward for the next two years. 

The 2025 Supplemental Appropriations Bill allocated $4.1 million for Legal Services, including $2.8 million specifically designated for litigation related to constitutional challenges from bills passed during the 2023 legislative session. 

The 2025 General Appropriations Act increased the Department of Justice budget by $24.2 million for fiscal years 2026 and 2027, with $2 million of that 8% increase specifically designated for the litigation of Montana legislation. 

Elections officials stressed the security of the existing voting process already in place before the passage of HB 719.

“There are already two unique numbers on your affirmation envelope that we utilize to look voters up and to verify signatures and to accept their ballots,” said Causby, in Yellowstone County. “One is a unique number specifically for that ballot for this election. The other number is the voter’s voter ID number. Then of course we have the signature.” 

A point echoed by Coyan, in Missoula County. 

“The signature is a very unique identifier,” said Coyan. “Adding the date of birth does not increase any security, it only adds an additional burden to the voter. People are receiving these ballots at their own request only because they are an active, eligible elector. There’s no need for us to have that date of birth on there.

“When we go from a small handful of rejected ballots in an election to massive piles of them, clearly something has changed for the voter. And it doesn’t look like for the better.”

The Secretary of State has not shared data supporting their claims of “one percent” rejection rate of ballots due to birth year or responded to multiple requests for comment from the Daily Montanan. 

     Another election wrinkle

In addition to House Bill 719, little known House Bill 207, sponsored by Rep. Jodee Etchert, R-Billings also went into effect this year, changing the election deadline for candidate filings. The changes took place in the middle of the filing window, forcing many candidates to refile, or in the case of Walkerville Ward 1 Alderperson, causing candidates to miss the new deadline altogether, leaving them registered as write-in candidates only. 

“They thought they were on time, but the law changed. So they were late,” said Silver Bow County Elections Administrator Cindy Sherman. “It made it a write-in only election, which makes for a very hard election.”

Silver Bow County had no rejected ballots for the race, but of the 180 ballots mailed out, only 31 (17%) were returned. 

“I think a lot of people just didn’t know what they were supposed to do with that ballot. People want to see a name so they can check a box,” explained Sherman. “Of those 31 ballots, 15 voted for the winning candidate. Three voted for the other candidate. 10 voted for somebody else, a non-declared person, and then three of them were actually unvoted. They filled in the oval, but they didn’t write anything in the line.”