The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Blaine County’s election results from the June 7 primary have been announced by Sandra Boardman, County Clerk and Elections Administrator. The results are ‘unofficial’ until canvassed by the Board of County Commissioners. Commissioners will canvass the results on June 17 to complete the primary process.

The following county wide results are totaled as reported from the various voting precincts:

Federal offices

A matter of days before the 2016 Montana primary, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were essentially their respective party’s presumptive presidential nominees. On the Democratic ticket in Blaine County, Bernie Sanders received 54% of the vote with Clinton receiving 38. Statewide Sanders won with 51%. Donald Trump received 77% of the Blaine County Republican votes and 73% statewide.

The only other federal office being contested was Montana’s single seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Republican incumbent Ryan Zink was unopposed in his party’s primary as was Democratic candidate Denise Juneau. They will face off in the general election.

Statewide offices

For the Governor’s office there was some minor primary competition. Both incumbent Steve Bullock (D) and challenger Greg Gianforte (R), with their named running mates, will face off in the general election.

There were three non-partisan contests for positions on the Montana Supreme Court, two with only one candidate. Kirsten Juras, running against two other judicial candidates, won the open seat with 44% of the vote statewide. She received a plurality in Blaine County with 41%.

Montana Senate

and House contests

After the 2010 national census the county’s precinct lines were redrawn. Precincts are the basis for the state legislative senate and house districts. Readers can see the districts on the accompanying map to this story. Senate District 17/House District 33 includes Blaine County precincts 1, 11, and 13 (basically the city of Chinook areas north of Highway 2) and Senate District 16/House District 32 is made up of precincts 3, 8, 9, 10, and 15 (generally the towns and areas south of Highway 2).

In Senate District 17 Mike Lang (R) defeated a primary challenger and will face Douglas Adolphson (D), who had no primary opponent, in the general election. In the same geographic area of the county, Casey Knudsen (R) defeated a primary opponent and will face Mike Finley (D) for the House District 33 .

In the north part of the county, Bruce Meyers (R) ran unopposed and will face Frank Smith (D) in November for the Senate District 16 seat. Smith defeated two challengers in the primary. For the House District 32 seat, former state senator Jonathan Windy Boy (D) ran unopposed in the primary and has no opposition in the general election.

Local contested offices

Blaine County had only two county offices to be filled this election cycle. Frank DePriest (R), an incumbent county commissioner, had no opposition in the primary and there was no Democratic candidate in the primary. He will run unopposed in the November contest.

See Page B6: Election

The retirement of Kay Johnson, longtime Clerk of the District Court in Blaine County, resulted in a vacancy sought by four candidates. Pauly B. Miller ran as a Republican without opposition in the primary. She will face Democratic primary winner Tami Sue Mitchell in the general election. Mitchell received 51% of the vote to defeat two other challengers.

Other aspects of the 2016 primary

This is the first election cycle in which alternative election offices are being used at Fort Belknap under terms of a mediated settlement to a 2012 court case. The offices were open at various sites at Fort Belknap for 10 days leading up to the primary election. Voters could late register and be issued absentee ballots at the reservations sites.

Sandra Boardman, Elections Administrator for Blaine County, said 86 absentee ballots were issued through the alternative voting offices and 10 voters, who were not registered in the county, late registered and were issued absentee ballots. Boardman added, “All 96 ballots were voted and submitted on the days they were issued.”

The alternative voting offices were staffed by regular employees from the County Clerk’s office. Because of a legal requirement that Montana voter registrations have to be issued sequentially, registration at the courthouse was closed when the alternative offices were staffed and the alternative offices were closed when employees were back at their regular locations. The Fort Belknap Community space for the alternative offices and the required hard-wired internet. County expenses included overtime and travel for employees.

Voter turnout and balloting

The attached table, with voting statistics, relates to the following comments.

Voter turnout is always of interest. Locals who follow county voting trends said a presidential primary normally brings out more voters. They also felt, with both major presidential candidates essentially decided before the Montana primary, the turnout of voters for the primary did not increase significantly. County voting forecasters believe turnout will likely spike in the general election since it’s a presidential election year.

Related to voter turnout is the issue of how widely absentee ballots are used. Basically, in Montana, voters can register, sign up for absentee ballots and never visit a polling site. Several attempts have been made in the state legislature to implement some form of ‘mail-in voting’ but, for various reasons, has never gained enough support to pass. Three states currently do voting strictly by mail and a fourth is studying how to implement a mail only voting process.

Most observers believe voting by mail can increase voter turnout. That seems to be true, statistically, but certain other things have to be in play for voter turnout to increase—like several mail reminders to voters who may not return their ballot, misplace their ballot or get distracted and forget to vote because there’s usually a wide window of time to return a ballot.

From the table, a majority of voters in Montana (71%) and Blaine County (55%), are using the absentee ballot option. The majority of the voters who voted absentee, are on the absentee list and automatically receive a mailed ballot for each election. There is a varying degree of acceptance of the absentee ballot option among Blaine County’s precincts. The precincts with the highest use of absentee ballots also had the highest voter turnout. Perhaps there is some correlation between ease of voting and voter turnout.

Readers should also keep in mind that every election cycle is different and varied dynamics can come into play. It’s foolhardy to make broad statements, or predictions, based on numbers from only one election. Maybe after the 2016 general election there will be some new ‘truths’ we will learn about voter behavior in Blaine County and Montana.

Go to http://www.sos.mt.gov/elections/results for current and historical Montana voting statistics. There’s also county-level data there as well.