Montana Sees Record Absentee Ballots Returned, ‘No Rigged Election’ Says Secretary of State

After eight years of running elections, Montana Secretary of state Linda McCulloch was happy to see that the election process on her final year in office went smoothly.

“We’ve been pretty busy, but all of the counties are reporting good, smooth elections, so I’m very pleased about that,” McCulloch said. “We’ve broken some records with the absentee ballots returned, we are at 90.3 percent of all absentee ballots returned.”

McCulloch, a former teacher, also ran a youth vote with 119 school districts and, apparently, Montanans learn to split ballots across party lines before they get out of high school.

“[Students votes] were all over the map, For President it was Donald Trump, for U.S. Representative it was Ryan Zinke, for Governor it was overwhelmingly Steve Bullock, Mellissa Romano was the State Superintendent, Tim Fox was Attorney General, Matt Rosendale was Auditor… they were really all over the map.”

McCulloch said that although there were some long lines at a few county courthouses, she had not heard any reports of voter fraud or glitches in the Montana system during Election Day and repeated that “there were no rigged elections in Montana.”