Reported Problems With Montana Absentee Ballots

A report of misprinted ballots in Broadwater county was recently confirmed by Broadwater County Clerk and Recorder, Rhonda Nelson. Ballots in District 11 were printed with an extra House and Senate race from another district. The total number of misprinted ballots distributed according to Nelson is "exactly 127" and so far 30 voters have used the incorrect ballots to cast their votes. Nelson also said that the voting machines will be fixed so that the extra house and senate races aren't registered. If you'd like to know how the ballots came to be misprinted and how the system of checking ballots is done, you can hear Rhonda Nelson explain the situation by clicking the audio box below.

The misprinted ballot issue even made a splash on the national conservative blog Breitbart. Republican Secretary of State Candidate Scott Aspenlieder says that the incident is "not a local or isolated issue" and that he has "reports from counties across the state that their are discrepancies and errors in the mail ballot process. " Aspenlieder is using the issue to try to get political traction against his opponent Secretary of Sate Linda McCulloch, saying that she has shown "zero leadership on the issue" and that she has "left the local Clerk and Recorders out to dry on this issue." He also says the errors are still visible on the Secretary of State's website. You can hear the full list of Aspenlieder's charges below.

KGVO News investigated the report of individuals only receiving one ballot instead of both the Democrat and Republican primary ballots in Yellowstone County. Elections coordinator for Yellowstone county, Bret Rutherford says that there have been 8 reported cases of ballot problems. Rutherford also pointed out that his office sent out over 42,000 hand packaged ballots and that a few ballot issues is not unexpected or uncommon.