TOWNSEND — At the Broadwater County Courthouse in Townsend, election staff is already putting together about 4,000 mail ballot packets for June’s state primary election. They started work on those immediately after finishing another 4,200 ballots for the Townsend School District’s election in May.
In each of those ballot packets, there’s something extra: a bright orange slip, intended to get voters’ attention. It lays out new requirements for what voters have to do to make sure their mail ballot is counted.
“Everybody is going to have to sign their ballot and also put their year of birth, and we want to make sure that voters know,” said Angie Paulsen, Broadwater County’s clerk and recorder and election administrator.
(Watch the video for more about the birth-year requirement.)
Paulsen is also communication committee chair for the Montana Association of Clerk and Recorders and Election Administrators. The organization is working to get the word out about House Bill 719, which added the requirement that mail voters mark their year of birth on the ballot envelope. If a voter forgets either the signature or the birth year, their ballot will be rejected – unless an election official is able to get in touch with them to cure the ballot.
“We want everybody's vote to count, so we will do everything in our power to reach out and make sure that they get their ballot reconciled,” said Paulsen.
On the upcoming school and primary election envelopes, voters will see the spaces for signature and birth year prominently marked.
“Our hope is that nobody can miss these two red arrows,” Paulsen said.
In some counties, voters first had to put their birth year on their mail ballots in last November's municipal elections. Lewis and Clark County introduced it as an option in the September municipal primary, before it was required in the general election.
However, Townsend’s city elections were canceled last year, after only one candidate filed for each open position. That means this will be the first time Broadwater County voters will be exposed to the requirement.
Paulsen says she understands some voters may be uncomfortable putting their birth year on an envelope. She encourages those voters to bring their ballots to their county elections office in person. They’ll still need to sign and give their birth year, but it won’t have to go through the mail.
One other change could mean even the ballots themselves look different this year. Paulsen says ballots will no longer include a write-in line if there are no certified write-in candidates for an office. A state law passed in 2023 had already established that any write-in votes that weren’t for a registered candidate will not count.
