GREAT FALLS — Sandra Merchant conducted yet another round of election machine testing on Thursday afternoon, in front of a small crowd of people at Montana’s ExpoPark in Great Falls.
The ballots ran through the machine represented the Library Mill Levy decision to be determined shortly after Election Day, on June 6th.
There have been some concerns over violations of election statutes during the School Board election. Numerous voters complained over poorly fitting ballots, the mailing of absentee ballots and signature verification.
“I know I hear a few people bringing up signature verification. We've done signature verification. We do it as the ballots come in,” says Merchant. “Everything is being scanned and we don't let anything go by without checking it. And if there's a signature that doesn't necessarily match, we have more than one set of eyes on it. If we can't verify it, we call the elector and ask them to come in and verify their signature for us.”
Due to these concerns, an election monitor by the name of Lynn DeRoche was appointed by District Court Judge Gilbert on May 22nd. The election monitor’s job is to report on any and all irregularities that may occur as a result of the election process. DeRoche reports directly to the courts.
On Thursday morning, a hearing occurred at the District Courthouse regarding DeRoche and their reports. The initial report was never e-mailed to the judge, leading Graybill Law Firm, who are helping to prop the monitor, to email DeRoche, reminding them of their duty to report to the court.
Elizabeth Lund, an attorney out of Bozeman representing Merchant filed an objection leading to the hearing.
The objection implied Graybill and his associates were advising DeRoche how to conduct their reports. Graybill’s defense maintained the e-mail simply advised DeRoche on the format of the reports and contained no language advising the monitor on substantiative issues.
Judge Gilbert passed a motion to secure election monitor DeRoche through Election Day.
“It was good in the sense that the monitor was allowed to continue, which means the judge still wants that process monitored up until Election Day next Tuesday, said Pete Fontana, brother to former Clerk & Recorder, Rina Moore. “We supported the monitor to make sure that the library election levy was run according to statute rule.”
Fontana continued to detail why the implementation of a monitor is paramount to reducing controversy.
“[On and after Election Day] are going to be the critical times that the monitor needs to be in place, which is verifying signatures on signature envelopes before the ballots are separated from the envelopes, which did not happen at the school district election,” says Fontana. That assures people, the public, that their vote counted and that the signature that they sent in matched and that we're not having deceased voters vote or people that are not signing ballots vote.”
Sandra Merchant disagrees a monitor is needed, and maintains her procedures are lawfully sound.
“We didn't feel it was necessary to have a monitor because we're following the law as it is. And we're going to continue to follow the law whether there's a monitor there or not.”
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