I received my “Official Primary Election Ballots” in the mail yesterday. Is this a great country or what? I like voting by mail. I’d like voting via the internet better. Voting by mail makes it easy to take some time and think about the choices. One piece of advice for the County Elections Office is that they should place an “I Voted” sticker in the envelopes with the ballots – just to add a dash of patriotism.

A couple of local legislative candidates (running against each other) were on the ball this election season as I received postcards urging me to vote for them. I know the process of getting these postcards out takes some coordination and some volunteers so I salute them for their hard work. It’s too bad one of you has to lose because either one if you would be better than the other party’s candidate.

The Process Should Be Changed:

I don’t like the law that I have to pick a party in the primary and only use their ballot. They need to change MCA 13-10-301 (2) which states, “At a primary election, the elector shall cast votes on only one of the party ballots…”

This year, there are contested races on both sides of the aisle. My Republican ballot has three contested primary races and my Democratic ballot has four contested primary races. Decisions, decisions! My bet is there are more Independent voters in Montana than Republicans and Democrats, so Independents should not be cornered into using one ballot in the primary. Continue reading →