'Tyrannical move': Montana county clerk stripped of election duties

Election duties have been removed from Cascade County Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant after months of errors in recent county-run elections, at least two related lawsuits filed, and a federal election looming in 2024.

After hearing from nearly 100 residents from both sides for almost seven hours, Cascade County Commissioners voted 2-1 Tuesday to move election duties under the commission’s purview. Merchant will continue overseeing other Clerk and Recorder duties, like surveying, and the commission will hire an elections administrator.

“I brought this forward because I believe it was the right thing to do,” Commissioner Joe Briggs said at the meeting. “I do not do this lightly.”

Opposition to the resolution to make the change included two preachers, several legislators and the Montana GOP chairman. A number of commenters said passing this resolution was a “tyrannical move” turning the county into a “Banana Republic.” They claimed the move “nullified” the votes of people who put Merchant in office in November 2022. Others conceded it was legal, but unwise. Merchant said the decision was “political and probably personal.”

Supporters of the resolution said there was enough evidence already Merchant was “in over her head” and feared the county would look “foolish” in the national spotlight in the upcoming federal election.

The resolution, brought by Briggs, cited the lawsuits against the county “for irregularities and technical errors in the elections she has thus far conducted” and the expense of litigation the county is incurring as well as the potential cost of rerunning one or more elections.

Merchant was elected by less than 40 votes in Nov. 2022, beating out 16-year incumbent Rina Moore.

Merchant said Tuesday people voted for her in opposition to Moore, who people didn’t want running elections as she was on the ballot. Briggs said at the time the only way to get rid of Moore was to vote her out, Merchant relayed.

“So in November of 2022, over 14,000 people voted her out as Mr. Briggs had suggested,” Merchant said. “They elected me instead.”

Since she took office in January, two jurisdictions sued the county for Merchant’s handling of their May elections and the Great Falls Public School District requested the county assume elections duties in September, citing a lack of communication from Merchant.

The resolution vote Tuesday came after a problematic canvass for the November municipal results, with the meeting going well into the night before Thanksgiving, with commissioners tallying results separately into the evening and being unable to complete the canvass until the following week. Canvasses under Moore and in other counties normally has taken less than a few hours. Briggs “reluctantly” voted to approve the canvass results, with concerns remaining around neighborhood council tallies.

Commission Chairperson Rae Grulkowski, a Merchant ally and far-right Republican on the all GOP commission, was the sole vote against the resolution to remove election duties from Merchant.

Grulkowski said the commission should have communicated better internally instead of holding a “six-hour lynching.”

“What we’re doing is creating more problems without answers,” Grulkowski said.

The resolution would also require commissioners on the ballot on a given election year to abstain from oversight of election duties. Grulkowski said during the meeting next year would mean her abstention.

The commission recently took another 2-1 vote, with Grulkowski opposed, to change how commission leadership is chosen, by majority vote instead of rotation. The change means Grulkowski’s days as chairperson could be ending soon as the commission will vote in January to select a chairperson.

At the meeting, Briggs made clear he’s unsure how they will fill the elections administrator position, given the employment market.

“But the problem exists now, and I truly believe that has to be fixed now,” Briggs said.

Rep. Steven Galloway, R-Great Falls, said he was concerned about filling the position and said he’s been in study groups examining why it’s hard to hire employees now.

“You can’t find employees because the population is decreasing – through people not having kids, having abortions, we’ve got folks that are retiring,” Galloway said.

Montana has seen a population spike in recent years, enough to warrant a new congressional district, but Great Falls has not seen the population spike as other cities in the state have, only growing 4.5% since 1969.

Across the country, and in Montana’s Lincoln County earlier this year, elections officers have been leaving their jobs after experiencing intense rhetoric following false claims stemming from former President Donald Trump of a stolen election in 2020.

When talking about the resolution, Commissioner James Larson cited concerns about anti-Library Levy signs being on display in the Elections Office when the county was gearing up to vote on whether to levy additional funds for the Great Falls Public Library in June. This is the same election where the library successfully went to court to have a judge institute an election monitor to oversee the election process due to concerns over how the May elections were run. The levy passed.

Larson and Briggs said it was time for a non-partisan person to oversee elections in the county, a move Briggs said he introduced when former Clerk and Recorder Moore was in charge but didn’t have the votes to move forward at the time.

Sen. Jeremy Trebas, R-Great Falls, was among several commenters who took aim at Briggs in their comments opposing the resolution, saying it “reeks of political favoritism.”

“Commissioner Briggs, you want local control. Well, this is local out of control, and it’s likely time the legislature strip you of some of your duties,” Trebas said. “Come on tough tusks, do the right thing.”

Montana GOP Chairman Don Kaltschmidt asked the commission to find another way to address the issue outside of the resolution stripping election administration from Merchant, “with a path forward that will allow her to perform her duties she was elected to while ensuring the election process in Cascade County is safe, secure and organized.”

Great Falls Public School District Superintendent Tom Moore said the legal counsel the district acquired from the fallout of the last school board election cost taxpayers $17,000 and said the district has no intent on running elections themselves. He said elections officials are paid to run elections “without controversy.”

“And that’s all we’re asking for,” Moore said.

School Board member Paige Turoski said the letter the school district sent requesting the county take over elections was sent without board approval, and Turoski was opposed to the resolution.

“Putting somebody else in charge of the elections this close to our election in May has the potential to cause greater problems and make it so that there are issues certifying our results this coming May,” Turoski said.

Local activist and former Democrat candidate for the legislature Jasmine Taylor, however, said time is of the essence. Taylor is a part of the citizen watchdog group the Election Protection Committee.

“There was never going to be a good time to bring this resolution. You were always going to make someone unhappy,” she said. “If these errors continue to occur next year in a federal election, you will not be worrying about a citizens action group monitoring you – you will be worrying about millions of dollars from federal candidates suing us into oblivion and making our county look foolish in front of the entire nation.”

Democrat U.S. Sen. Jon Tester will be fighting to keep his seat next year in a race that’s expected to be tight, with the nation looking to see if Democrats keep a slim majority in the U.S. Senate or if Republicans take control. Bozeman businessman Tim Sheehy is so far the most prominent Republican to announce.

The commission has an executive meeting scheduled for Dec. 15 titled “Organizing Election Department with County Attorney-Commissioners” on the county calendar.

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