In 2020 Montana Democrats, worried that the Green Party candidate would peel votes away from the Democratic candidate for Senate, visited people who had signed the Green Party candidate’s petition and got them to sign statements withdrawing their signatures. Democrats also combed the petitions for variations in the names on the registration. Let’s say I had signed the petition “Roy Christman,” but I was registered as “Roy B. Christman.” My signature would be disqualified.
On April 12 the Montana legislature passed SB 350, which said that a signature is valid even if the signer used his or her middle name on the voter registration form but left it off on the petition (or vice versa). It says that a voter who signs a petition and then wishes to withdraw the signature must do so by the March petition deadline.
That bill is eminently fair and right. Every Republican in both houses voted “yes.” Every Democrat voted “No.” And no, I don’t think that is equivalent to what the Republicans are doing in Georgia, Texas, and many other states to suppress votes, but it is definitely wrong, and Montana Democrats need to be called out on it.
(By the way, even though the Democratic Party managed to get the Green Party candidate disqualified, the Democratic candidate lost anyway.)
I learned about this issue from “Ballot Access News,” May 1, 2021.
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