Resource: Montana Absentee Ballot Collection

Challenge to two Montana voting restrictions. The first is Montana’s recently enacted restrictions on individuals and organizations that assist absentee voters by collecting and transporting sealed and signed absentee ballots to the county elections office. Montana’s absentee ballot assistance ban effectively prevents counties from providing secure, 24 hour drop boxes and other convenient, after-hours ballot return locations, forcing absentee voters seeking to vote during the last week of an election to drop off their ballots only during the business hours of a drop off site staffed by county election officials. The second is Montana’s requirement that absentee ballots must be received by the county elections office by 8 PM on Election Day. Regardless of when the ballot is postmarked, and regardless of whether the voter is responsible for any delay the ballot encounters in the mail, if the ballot is not received by 8 p.m., the voter is entirely disenfranchised. The combined effect of the Absentee Ballot Assistance Ban and the Election Day Cutoff is to make it significantly more difficult for voters to exercise their right to vote, prevents civic organizations, friends, and neighbors from helping voters, and particularly burdens senior, disabled, Native American, and young voters.