Montana seeks to revive signature restrictions for ballot petitions, including on abortion rights

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana officials asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday for an emergency order to block a ruling that allowed signatures from inactive voters to count on petitions for several proposed November ballot initiatives, including one to protect abortion rights.

A judge said Tuesday that Montana’s Secretary of State wrongly changed election rules to reject inactive voter signatures from three ballot initiatives after the signatures had been turned in to counties and after some of the signatures had been verified.

The judge gave county election offices until July 24 to tally signatures of inactive voters that had been rejected. All the initiatives are expected to qualify even without the rejected signatures.

Two organizations sued Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen when her office, in response to a question from a county election officer, said the signatures of voters who were considered “inactive” should not count toward the number of signatures needed to place initiatives on the ballot.

In granting a restraining order that blocked the change, state District Judge Michael Menahan said participation in government was a “fundamental right” that he was duty-bound to uphold. He scheduled a July 26 hearing on a permanent injunction against the state.

The groups that sued — Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights and Montanans for Election Reform — alleged the state for decades had accepted signatures of inactive voters, people who file change-of-address forms with the U.S. Postal Service and then fail to respond to county attempts to confirm their address. They can restore their active voter status by providing their address, showing up at the polls or requesting an absentee ballot.

The election reform group is asking voters to approve constitutional amendments calling for open primaries and another provision to require that candidates need a majority of the vote to win a general election.