Training for a nonpartisan look at the 2024 Montana election

HELEN, Mont. — Last week, security footage showing a man touching a ballot box in Browning caused a brief viral storm, Republican Secretary of State Christy Jacobsen claiming in a statement issued by her 2024 election campaign that the video showed “irrefutable” evidence of election fraud by a political figure.

“The actions caught on camera show how desperate Democrats in Montana have become,” Jacobsen said in a statement, referring to claims the man was a Democratic operative. “Forgery of ballot boxes is a criminal offense and those responsible will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Jacobsen’s claims of interference echoed language used by Glacier County Elections Administrator Crystal Cole in an Oct. 21 email alerting Jacobsen’s office to the incident, and the allegation quickly made headlines in conservative media, including Fox News. Glacier County officials later dismissed the claims as unsubstantiated, noting that the person in the footage — a former staffer for the Democratic Senatorial Nomination Committee — had been questioned by the Glacier County Sheriff’s Office and released without criminal charges.

Glacier County Prosecutor Terrill Matt did not respond to emails from the Montana Free Press, but said KRTV Great Falls last week, “The conduct captured on video does not constitute a lawful attempt to interfere with the ballot box or the election process.” DSCC also did not respond to MTFP’s email seeking comment.

The rhetoric fueled by the episode hinted at a broader trend in Montana elections in recent years characterized by increased skepticism about the security of infrastructure and systems was used to conduct these elections. Concerned citizens have registered piles of government records appeals to local election commissions allegations of misconduct by district election officials, and sometimes by themselves watchdog, allegedly suspicious activity. For Geraldine Custer, a former Republican state legislator and 36-year veteran of Rosebud County’s election service, growing public distrust of the election process has sparked personal fears that some Montanans may stop voting.

“I just felt like people weren’t going to vote,” Custer told MTFP. “They weren’t going to trust the system. They were going to think, “Why bother?”

Custer is one of a handful of former state and local officials who have turned their concerns about mistrust in Montana elections this year by partnering with the Georgia-based nonprofit Carter Center and the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center to impartially monitor the state’s Nov. 5 election. The group, called the Montana Election Watch Initiative, has spent the past few months recruiting and training 175 volunteers in 15 counties who are tasked with monitoring various local election procedures. According to coordinator Daniel Bruce, the initiative will cover Montana’s five largest municipalities and a selection of smaller rural counties.

“We’ve seen a lot of positive traction and engagement over the past few weeks,” Bruce told MTFP recently. “We’re still going to add a few people back and forth in each of these rural communities just to increase coverage. But overall, we’re in a really good place and we’re really excited about the level of engagement and excitement we’re seeing from the communities.”

The Carter Center initiated a similar initiative in Georgia during the 2022 midterm elections and is conducting surveillance with local leaders in New Mexico this year as well.

Bruce added that the volunteers will act as impartial observers of local operations on Election Day, practicing a checklist that consistently follows the steps outlined in state law for processing ballots and counting votes. The observers’ collective observations will then be used to create a post-election report on the results of the initiative, including a description of each step of the process and comments on any significant problems or observed deviations from established procedure. Bruce added that the volunteers will adhere to a strict code of conduct that emphasizes professionalism and non-interference in the operations they oversee, and have been instructed to prioritize their safety and withdraw if any situations at polling stations and election offices become threatening.

The leaders of the initiative followed the same pattern during a trial observation of the first of June in Missoula County, which reported no systematic problems or failures and concluded that the election was “well organized, peaceful, orderly” and conducted in accordance with state laws and regulations.

Separate from the Montana Election Observation Initiative led by the Carter Center, two international observers arrived in Montana earlier this month as part of nationwide monitoring of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Composed of 57 member countries, including the United States, the organization has conducted more than 430 election observation activities around the world as part of its mission to promote free and fair elections. This year, for the eleventh time in the past two decades, the OSCE is conducting such a mission to the US elections at the invitation of the federal government.

The two OSCE observers assigned to Montana and Wyoming are part of a group of 64 observers spread across the lower 48 states who gather not only technical information on American election procedures, but also information on voter rights, the socio-political environment surrounding federal campaigns, and problems faced by journalists. coverage of federal elections. In a May 2024 Needs Assessment Recommendation This year’s OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights general monitoring mission noted the potential importance of international observation “given the highly polarized environment and discourse that sows distrust of the integrity of elections.”

The evaluation also concluded that most of the problems identified during previous OSCE observation missions to the US remain “unaddressed” and that few of the organization’s recommendations have been implemented. An interim report in the 2024 general election, released last week, said early monitoring work indicated a “highly competitive electoral landscape with high expectations of widespread post-election litigation”. The OSCE plans to release its preliminary findings and conclusions at a press conference in Washington, DC on November 6.

Are the opinions of election day observers enough to bolster Secretary of State Jacobsen’s faith in the integrity of Montana’s elections repeatedly called the “gold standard”, it seems unlikely that the politicization of election administration will disappear immediately. Bruce said the Montana Election Watch Initiative has deliberately focused on administration and litigation, tacitly acknowledging that “it’s not easy to talk about elections without talking about politics.” Bruce added that the initiative’s leaders recognize that the volunteers they have trained have their own political beliefs, but the hope is that the diverse group’s collective commitment to impartiality can serve as its own signal.

“I think people are eager to participate in events and dialogues that allow them to reject some of the partisan elements that tend to divide us,” Bruce said.

Former Montana Political Affairs Commissioner Jeff Mengan, who co-chairs the initiative with Custer, believes there is positive momentum in simply illuminating the election process. Electoral bodies in some districts have have already taken similar steps, he said, and increasingly engaged in conversations about their work, striving for transparency and trust.

“I don’t know how we do it, but there needs to be more of a county-by-county, official-by-official effort to talk about these things and stay out of politics,” Mangan said of questions and concerns about election procedures. “I don’t know if it’s possible, but unfortunately it’s only talked about when something political happens.”

Alex Sakariassen | Reporter

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Alex Sakariassen is a 2008 graduate of the University of Montana School of Journalism, where he spent four years working for the Montana student newspaper Kaimin and two summers as a reporter for the Choteau Acantha. With a bachelor’s degree in journalism and history, Sakariassen spent nearly 10 years covering environmental issues and state and federal politics for the alternative weekly Missoula Independent. After the Indy was abruptly shut down in September 2018, he began freelance journalism, writing in-depth articles, breaking… More from Alex Sakariassen