Drive In Ballot Drop Off And Open House Thursday At Fairgrounds

The Missoula city election date draws ever closer, with Tuesday, November 7 as the date when all mail ballots are due.
Elections administrator Rebecca Connors has been keeping track of the arrival of the incoming ballots.

“We received a lot back at first, and now we’re getting into that plateau period,” Connors said. “We’re currently at 25 percent of ballots returned. We’re seeing a lot of walk-in traffic with lots of folks bringing in their ballots. We’ve also received a lot of mail today, so we’re hoping to be up around 30 percent over the next day or two.”

Connors said there will be a special event to encourage ballot returns on Thursday.

“We are doing a drive through ballot drop off from 9:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 2,” she said. “We’re getting closer to that election day. You can still get it to the fairgrounds but you don’t even have to get out of your car, and you’ll even get an ‘I Voted’ sticker.”

In addition, Connors said anyone interested in learning more about the elections process is invited to attend an open house, also on Thursday.

“The open house and tour will start at 10:00 a.m. and we’ll actually be testing voting equipment that day so folks can see the voting machines and what machines are counting those mail ballots,” she said. “We’ll walk through late and same-day registration and then we’ll see how the ballots are received and how the signature verification process works, so we get to walk through the entire election process.”

Ballots are due by 8:00 p.m. on municipal Election Day, Tuesday, November 7.