BILLINGS — Registered voters can expect to receive absentee ballots in the next few days.
Bret Rutherford, Yellowstone County elections administrator, said county officials will mail 70,000 ballots on Friday.
That’s about 5,000 more than ever before, an increase he attributes to the 2017 Montana legislation that keeps voters on the absentee voter list until they ask to be removed.
Before that, voters had to renew their absentee ballot request to stay on the list.
Most voters in the Yellowstone County receive absentee ballots.
Beginning this week, people may register to vote at the county’s elections office in the courthouse on North 27th Street. Rutherford said people can also come into the elections office to vote early.
The general election is Nov. 6. Absentee ballots must be returned to the courthouse by that date to be counted.
In the general election, voters will be able to select candidates for the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, Montana House and Senate, Yellowstone County commissioner, sheriff, clerk and recorder/surveyor, treasurer/assessor/superintendent of schools, auditor, attorney, justice of the peace and district judge. A sample ballot is available on the county elections website in the “my voter” section.
Rutherford said 90,000 people statewide received a recent mailing that indicated they were registered to vote, but had not signed up to receive an absentee ballot.
A good share of those mailers were sent to Yellowstone County voters, he said, and his office has already fielded emails, calls and personal visits from about 1,000 people checking their absentee voter status.
So far, only six needed to sign up for absentee ballots, he said.
The pamphlet mailed by the League of Conservation Voters and United Steelworkers through the New American Jobs Fund, is “using up all our resources,” Rutherford said. The groups apparently obtained voter information from the Montana Secretary of State’s office, he said, but didn’t use it the right way. They should have sent the pamphlet only to people who needed it, he said, instead of spending $140,000 to send it to people who did not need it.
The mailer created unnecessary work and “opportunity cost on our end,” Rutherford said.
People who want an absentee ballot can come into his office and ask for one, he said.
