(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Errors in Cascade County municipal election ballot distribution largely resolved – Daily Montanan [1] ['Nicole Girten', 'More From Author', '- November'] Date: 2023-11-03 Issues with voters receiving duplicate ballots, residents receiving ballots for other municipalities and confusion around precincts on ballots have largely been resolved in Cascade County heading into the municipal election next week, according to new Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant about the third election overseen by her office. Other issues included a sample ballot published in the Great Falls Tribune on Monday that appeared misleading in how it was formatted; however an updated sample was published in the paper Thursday. In statements last week and in an email to the Daily Montanan on Friday, Merchant had explanations and solutions for the hiccups, but some voters in the community still don’t have confidence in her abilities, with some protesting last week to have her removed. Conflict has surrounded her office since January after she narrowly won her election, with a court appointing an election monitor for the library levy election in June and the Great Falls Public School District publishing a letter requesting the county commissioners to take over the duties of her office, citing a lack of communication with Merchant. Merchant is known in the community as an election denier. Earlier this year, she attended a presentation in Great Falls by a nationally recognized election denier, Douglas Frank, and said it gave her much to think about. As for duplicate ballots in the upcoming municipal election, Merchant confirmed in an email Friday to the Daily Montanan they were caused by a printing machine error, as she said in an earlier public statement. “The printer tried to catch them all but missed a few,” Merchant wrote in the email. She said the system would catch if duplicate ballots were submitted and would void one ballot. She said if a voter happens to receive one of the duplicate ballots in the mail, they may destroy it or bring it into the office. The Nov. 7 municipal election is all mail-in, as opposed to the hybrid poll elections Merchant previously oversaw. “The printer has apologized for the error and assured us that there should not be many,” Merchant said in an Oct. 27 press release. The Electric reported Monday a resident in Cascade received a Great Falls municipal ballot. Merchant said the resident had previously entered a Great Falls address and that’s why they received it and blamed Moore’s team for the mistake. “We have been finding several errors by the previous administration, including wrong addresses, names entered incorrectly, and deceased voters not removed from the rolls. We are correcting these errors as we find them,” Merchant said. Previous Clerk and Recorder Rina Moore served in the position for 16 years largely without controversy. Her office, like many around the country, started to be flooded with attention from election conspiracists after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. In this election, some voters also were confused about whether the precinct on their ballot was correct, however Merchant assured the public in her statement it is correct. Melissa Smith, former Democrat candidate for the statehouse, told the Daily Montanan the precincts didn’t match exactly, with some having extra numbers, and it led to confusion. But Merchant said that if the precinct is correct, voters are in the clear. “The other splits (different precinct sub-sections) are incorporated under that split number because the ballots were the same. You have still received the correct ballot and may go ahead and vote. It will be counted correctly and attributed to the correct precinct split,” she said. The other controversy in the runup to the election Tuesday was a sample ballot published in the Great Falls Tribune last week was misleading in its formatting. Smith said the way it was printed, it left two candidates out from under a neighborhood council election, printing them in a separate column, one being her husband, David Saslav. Another issue was the bubbles not being included under the public safety levy, with some language cut off. The Tribune published a corrected version of the sample ballot in the paper Thursday, taking a full page to show the ballot as a voter would see it. In her emailed response to questions, Merchant said the error was on the paper. “The Tribune decided to publish without my approval because I was in training and couldn’t review it before their deadline,” she said. A regional Tribune editor forwarded a request for comment to Gannett Public Relations, which did not respond in time for publication. Smith told the Daily Montanan she still has “no confidence” in Merchant as Clerk and Recorder. “We feel like our vote’s being disenfranchised, just because there’s always so much chaos in the office,” Smith said. “When you call with questions or you go down with questions, you’re treated rudely, your questions aren’t answered, nobody picks up the phone, and so you have to be incredibly persistent to get any kind of answers.” Merchant responded to Smith’s critique of her office, saying she hasn’t seen Smith around, but “if she would like a tour, we will gladly give it to her. The process is running quite smoothly.” Smith was part of the crowd that protested last week in front of the Cascade County Court Annex, at least the second such protest this year. She said the crowd of 50 people was split evenly between people wanting Merchant to step down and Merchant supporters. Although at least one commissioner, Joe Briggs, has publicly expressed interest in the commission taking over election duties, there has been no indication that’s currently being considered. Merchant said she thought the protest was “great” and was glad both sides were present, saying there were more supporters of her office than detractors – contrary to Smith’s assessment there was an even split. “Everyone is entitled to speak their opinion and have their voice heard,” she said. 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