Montana officials say ballot delay could harm election
HELENA — Some Montana residents may not see their votes counted until after November's elections if the state Supreme Court grants Republican Party chairman Jeff Essmann's petition to delay the printing of ballots to remove a Libertarian candidate's name, state officials said Monday.
Changing the ballots now to remove Roger Roots' name from the ballot could cause counties to miss the deadline to mail ballots to Montana residents currently outside of the United States, Jorge Quintana, a lawyer for Secretary of State Linda McCulloch, said in his response filed with the high court.
It would also require changing the handicapped-accessible electronic voting system and the vote tabulating equipment for the more than 700 ballots statewide, said Lisa Kimmet, McCulloch's elections deputy. And ballots would have to be reprinted because the candidates' names in each race are rotated on different ballots so that each name appears at the top of the list an equal number of times.
Roots, who has neither collected nor spent any money in his campaign, is running for secretary of state against Republican Corey Stapleton and Democrat Monica Lindeen. Roots said the Republicans are trying to force him off the ticket because they believe he'll take votes away from Stapleton.
Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/montana-officials-say-ballot-delay-could-harm-election/article_aa61078d-63e2-573c-a5f5-4ab2348ebd3f.html
Montana News is being cross-posted to http://democratsforever.freeforums.net/board/47/montana .
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