Secretary of State’s Office Shares Inaccurate Polling Information; Disproportionately Affects Native Voters

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, November 4th, 2022

CONTACT
hadley@montanademocrats.org

Only 2 voters showed up to a Satellite Voting Location in Frazer the SOS failed to list and publish

Helena, MT – In response to a public statement by ACLU of Montana and the Native Americans Rights Fund which accused the Secretary of State’s office of sharing incorrect polling information on their website, the Montana Democratic Party conducted an audit of the official polling locations and found numerous inaccuracies and missing or wrong addresses. A majority of the inaccurate precincts are in predominantly native communities and serve Native voters.

The errors affected rural communities across Montana, including Big Horn, Blaine, Carbon, Chouteau, Madison, and Musselshell counties. The counties for which inaccurate information was listed included a disproportionate number of Indigenous and rural communities, where a long drive to a wrong or nonexistent polling location could prevent Montanans from being able to exercise their right to vote.

Listed polling information for Big Horn County includes “National Park Service Building - Fort Smith”, “Crow School - Reno”, “Crow School - Crow Agency”, “Pryor Elementary School”, and “N.C. Tribal School” as election day polling locations– None are actual polling locations.

In Choteau County, an election day polling location at the Chouteau County Courthouse is not included in the Secretary of State’s list.

In Valley County, the Secretary of State failed to include information about a satellite voting location in Frazer on their list of official Satellite Voting Locations. Due to the lack of clear and accessible information from the state's top election official, only two voters showed up, according to the Valley County Clerk and Recorder.

Candidates, parties, and voting advocates have been directing voters to the Secretary of State’s MyVoterPage to find accurate information about their polling locations for months. For many voters in these counties, the information they find on MyVoterPage is simply wrong.

“These are not simply accounting errors, this is a pattern of misinformation which predominantly harms Native voters,” says Sheila Hogan, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party. “Indigenous communities have faced deliberate barriers to voting this year – and the state’s highest elections’ administrator has not only pushed out inaccurate and misleading voting information, she has deliberately failed to correct the mistakes when they’re pointed out. This is simply unacceptable.”

The Secretary of State’s office has spent all summer defending voter suppression laws in Montana in court. Among them, HB 176 sought to end Election Day registration and HB 530 aimed to prohibit paid third-party ballot assistance. The courts found that Native American voters living on reservations disproportionately rely upon both Election Day registration and ballot assistance to cast votes in Montana.

Earlier this fall, the Courts struck down these laws. Despite that, Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen’s office continued to air radio advertisements promoting a false voter registration deadline, and printed and distributed the false information on the state’s official voter information pamphlets.

As of 12:30pm, Friday, November 4th, 2022, Jacobsen's office has not corrected the inaccuracies. With four days until Election Day, we recommend voters go to VoteinMT.org for accurate voting information.

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