Montana Supreme Court greenlights effort to overhaul state elections

The campaign to bring a top-four primary to Montana got some welcome news last week when the state Supreme Court unanimously overruled a move by Republican Attorney General Austin Knudsen that would have kept a proposed constitutional amendment off the 2024 general election ballot. Montanans for Election Reform isn't done dealing with Knudsen, however, as he still has to review a second ballot measure that would require winning candidates to secure a majority of the vote.

The Montana Free Press explains that MER wants to implement a system similar to that used in Alaska, under which all candidates, regardless of party, would compete in one primary. The four contenders with the most votes would then advance to an instant-runoff general election.

The amendment that the Supreme Court acted on, which the secretary of state's office has designated Ballot Issue 12, would replace Montana's partisan primaries with a top-four setup. However, it doesn't include any rules for how the second round of voting would work, likely to avoid running afoul of the state's "single-subject" rule for ballot measures—which itself was at the core of MER's legal dispute with Knudsen.