Is It To Late To Register To Vote In Montana

(DAILY MONTNAN) Legislative Republicans debuted the get-go of their "election integrity" proposals Fri with a neb to end Ballot-Solar day voter registration in Montana, which has been on the books since 2005.

The bill's sponsor, Florence Republican Sharon Greef, said it'southward a necessary solution to the long lines and hours-long waits on voting solar day in the final and prior elections — and something that could reduce the burden on the county offices that oversee polling places.

"One of our biggest problems is trying to run an election in a decent style that is organized when yous withal take people coming in to register to vote (on Election Twenty-four hour period)," said Doug Ellis, the acme elections official (as well as clerk, recorder, treasurer and superintendent) in Broadwater County, in support of the mensurate.

Merely several opponents of the pecker testified Th that the solution to authoritative burden at the county elections level isn't to restrict voting, especially if it means cutting off late registration the Fri before ballot twenty-four hours, as Greef is proposing.

"We don't need to end annals to vote (on Ballot Twenty-four hours), we just need to invest in more open, and more free and fair elections," said Keaton Sunchild, the political managing director of Western Native Vocalisation, an organisation supporting civic date among indigenous people in the Western U.S.

Montana'southward Native American residents are among the many communities that benefit from same-twenty-four hours registration, opponents of the nib said. Tribal reservations are huge and ofttimes lacking in infrastructure. Plus, Sunchild said, information technology'southward becomede facto among many indigenous Montans to vote — and if necessary, register — on Election Day.

Students, who often alter their addresses, the elderly, those with disabilities and those in long-term care facilities have as well come to rely on late registration, opponents said.

Beth Brenneman, an attorney for Disability Rights Montana, said it'southward her organisation's charge to aid people in environments similar those become registered and vote on time. Having Election-Twenty-four hours registration provides needed flexibility to that stop, she testified.

"If they tin can't register late, nosotros can't help them," she said.

Greef said she's but trying to make sure that voters and election workers can focus their Election Mean solar day efforts on keeping everything running smoothly, arguing that voters have a whole year to get registered and enough of public notice to remind them.

"The focus of Firm Bill 176 is non to burden, it is not to disenfranchise, and not to provide a forum for a historical debate," she said Thursday.

Ellis, the Broadwater Canton official, said he wants more people to vote, not fewer, and was proud of his canton'southward record turnout in the last presidential ballot: 82% of around v,000 registered voters.

HB 176 has likewise earned the back up of Montana'south new Secretary of Land, Christi Jacobsen, who on Thursday labeled information technology as an effort to "strengthen the integrity of elections." It'south ane of 5 election bills her office is pushing this year, amongst them an attempt to ascertain "election security" in statute.

About every Montana county, whether majority Republican or Democrat, registered at least i ballot-day voter in 2018, the last year for which complete data is available.

Ravalli County Clerk and Recorder Regina Plettenberg, who appeared Th as a representative of the Montana Association of Clerks and Recorders, which is neutral on the bill, told the committee that 171 people in Ravalli registered to vote on the concluding two days of the 2020 election.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers passed legislation enabling Election-Day voting in 2005, netting the support of the state's Republican Secretary of Country at that time, noted Jon Ellingson, who as the Demoratic Senate Majority Leader 11 years ago ferried the proposal across the finish line. Montana is ane of 20 states that permit for the exercise.

"Voter turnout has risen to new heights, this can exist attributed in part to the fact that voters may register on the same solar day that they vote," Ellingson testified.

Merely in the years since, as the complexion of the Legislature has inverse, lawmakers have made multiple attempts to dial dorsum late voting on Election Twenty-four hours. In 2011, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer, following a theme of his administration, vetoed HB180 after it passed comfortably in both legislative chambers.

Two years afterward, Republicans passed a ballot referral asking the voters to decide the following year whether they wanted to movement back the voter registration borderline. But the resulting measure failed with 57% opposed.

"Montana voters voted overwhelmingly against these restrictions," testified Sam Forstag from the ACLU of Montana. "Delight provide Montanans with consistency and fidelity to the vote they took in 2014. "