HELENA, Mont. — Security footage of a man touching a ballot drop box in Browning sparked a brief viral firestorm last week, with Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen claiming in a statement delivered by her 2024 reelection campaign that the video showed “undeniable” evidence of election tampering by a political operative.
“The actions captured on camera reveal how desperate Democrats have become in Montana,” Jacobsen’s statement read, referring to assertions the man was a Democratic party staffer. “Tampering with ballot boxes is a criminal offense, and those responsible will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Jacobsen’s allegation of tampering echoed the language used by Glacier County Election Administrator Crystal Cole in an Oct. 21 email alerting Jacobsen’s office of the incident, and the framing quickly made it into headlines from conservative-leaning media outlets including Fox News. Glacier County officials later dismissed the claims as unsubstantiated, noting that the person in the footage — a former employee of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — was questioned by the Glacier County Sheriff’s Office and released without any criminal charges.
Glacier County Attorney Terryl Matt did not respond to emails from Montana Free Press but told KRTV Great Falls last week, “The behavior captured in the video does not constitute a legitimate attempt to tamper with the ballot box or the electoral process.” The DSCC also did not respond to an MTFP email seeking comment.
The rhetoric inspired by the episode was evocative of a broader trend in Montana elections in recent years, one characterized by heightened skepticism about the security of the infrastructure and systems used to conduct those elections. Concerned citizens have filed reams of public records requests with local election offices, leveled allegations of misconduct on the part of county election officials, and at times taken it upon themselves to watchdog allegedly suspicious activity. For Geraldine Custer, a former Republican state lawmaker and 36-year veteran of the Rosebud County elections office, growing public distrust in the electoral process raised a personal fear that some Montanans may stop participating.
“I just felt like people were going to not vote,” Custer told MTFP. “They weren’t going to trust the system. They were going to think, ‘Why bother?’”
Custer is one of a handful of former state and local officials who have put their concern about flagging faith in Montana elections into action this year, partnering with the Georgia-based nonprofit Carter Center and the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center to impartially observe the state’s Nov. 5 election. Dubbed the Montana Election Observation Initiative, the group has spent the past few months recruiting and training 175 volunteers across 15 counties tasked with monitoring various local election procedures. According to coordinator Daniel Bruce, the initiative will encompass Montana’s five largest municipalities and a sampling of smaller, rural counties.
“Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen a lot of positive traction and engagement,” Bruce told MTFP recently. “We’re still looking to add a few people here and there in each of those rural communities to just boost that level of coverage But overall, we’re in a really good spot and we’re really excited by the level of engagement and excitement we’ve seen from the communities.”
The Carter Center spearheaded a similar initiative in Georgia during the 2022 midterm election, and is conducting observation efforts alongside local leaders in New Mexico this year as well.
Bruce added that volunteers will act as nonpartisan observers of local Election Day operations, working off a checklist that sequentially follows the steps outlined in state law for processing ballots and tabulating votes. The observers’ collective observations will then be used to generate a post-election report of the initiative’s findings, including a narrative of each stage in the process and notes about any significant concerns or observed departures from established procedure. Bruce added that volunteers will be held to a strict code of conduct emphasizing professionalism and non-interference with the operations they’re observing, and have been instructed to prioritize their own safety and step away if any situations at poll locations and election offices become threatening.
Initiative leaders followed the same model during a pilot observation of the June primary in Missoula County, which reported no systematic concerns or incidents of disruption and concluded the election was “well-organized, peaceful, orderly,” and conducted in line with state laws and guidelines.
Separately from the Carter Center-led Montana Election Observation Initiative, two international election observers arrived in Montana early this month as part of a nationwide monitoring effort by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe [OSCE]. The organization — made up of 57 member countries including the United States — has conducted more than 430 election observation efforts across the globe as part of its mission to promote free and fair elections. This year marks the 11th time in the past two decades that OSCE has conducted such a mission in a U.S. election at the invitation of the federal government.
The two OSCE monitors tasked to Montana and Wyoming are among a team of 64 monitors spread across the Lower 48 states collecting not just technical information about America’s election procedures but insights on voter rights, the sociopolitical environment surrounding federal campaigns, and the challenges faced by reporters covering federal elections. In a May 2024 needs assessment recommending this year’s general election monitoring mission, OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights noted the potential importance of international observation “given the highly polarized environment and the discourse sowing distrust in the integrity of elections.”
The assessment also concluded that most issues identified in past OSCE observation missions in the U.S. remain “unaddressed,” and that only some of the organization’s recommendations have been implemented. An interim report on the 2024 general election released last week said early monitoring work indicated “a highly contested electoral environment, with a high expectation for widespread post-election litigation.” The OSCE plans to release its preliminary findings and conclusions at a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 6.
Whether Election Day insights from firsthand observers are enough to improve faith in the integrity of Montana’s elections, which Secretary of State Jacobsen has repeatedly called a “gold standard,” it appears unlikely that politicization of election administration will vanish overnight. Bruce said the Montana Election Observation Initiative has intentionally kept its focus on administration and legal process in a tacit acknowledgment that it’s “not easy to talk about elections without talking about politics.” Initiative leaders recognize the volunteers they’ve trained have their own political beliefs, Bruce added, but the hope is that the collective commitment of a diverse group to an attitude of impartiality can serve as a message in its own right.
“I think people are eager to participate in activities and in dialog that allows them to put aside some of the partisan elements that tend to divide us,” Bruce said.
Former Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan, who is co-chairing the initiative alongside Custer, believes there’s positive momentum in simply shining light on the electoral process. Election officials in some counties have already taken similar steps, he said, and have increasingly engaged in conversations about their work in a bid for transparency and trust.
“I don’t know how we get there, but there needs to be a more connected effort from county to county, official to official, talking about these things and avoiding politics,” Mangan said of questions and concerns about election procedures. “I don’t know if that’s possible, but it only gets talked about, unfortunately, when something political happens.”
Alex Sakariassen | Reporter
Alex Sakariassen is a 2008 graduate of the University of Montana’s School of Journalism, where he worked for four years at the Montana Kaimin student newspaper and cut his journalistic teeth as a paid news intern for the Choteau Acantha for two summers. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in journalism and history, Sakariassen spent nearly 10 years covering environmental issues and state and federal politics for the alternative newsweekly Missoula Independent. He transitioned into freelance journalism following the Indy’s abrupt shuttering in September 2018, writing in-depth features, breaking… More by Alex Sakariassen
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