Current:Home > ScamsMontana Supreme Court allows signatures of inactive voters to count on ballot petitions -ProsperPlan Hub
Montana Supreme Court allows signatures of inactive voters to count on ballot petitions
View
Date:2025-04-18 00:45:09
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana’s Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would allow the signatures of inactive voters to count on petitions seeking to qualify constitutional initiatives for the November ballot, including one to protect abortion rights.
District Court Judge Mike Menahan ruled last Tuesday that Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen’s office 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 change to longstanding practices included reprogramming the state’s election software.
Jacobsen’s office last Thursday asked the Montana Supreme Court for an emergency order to block Menahan’s ruling that gave counties until this Wednesday to verify the signatures of inactive voters that had been rejected. Lawyers for organizations supporting the ballot initiatives and the Secretary of State’s Office agreed to the terms of the temporary restraining order blocking the secretary’s changes.
Justices said Jacobsen’s office failed to meet the requirement for an emergency order, saying she had not persuaded them that Menahan was proceeding under a mistake of law.
“We further disagree with Jacobsen that the TRO is causing a gross injustice, as Jacobsen’s actions in reprogramming the petition-processing software after county election administrators had commenced processing petitions created the circumstances that gave rise to this litigation,” justices wrote.
A hearing on an injunction to block the changes is set for Friday before Menahan.
The groups that sued — Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights and Montanans for Election Reform — alleged the state for decades had accepted signatures of inactive voters, defined as people who filed universal change-of-address forms and then failed 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.
Backers of the initiative to protect the right to abortion access in the state constitution said more than enough signatures had been verified by Friday’s deadline for it to be included on the ballot. Backers of initiatives to create nonpartisan primaries and another to require a candidate to win a majority of the vote to win a general election have said they also expect to have enough signatures.
veryGood! (129)
Related
- Small twin
- Brody Jenner and Tia Blanco Are Engaged 5 Months After Announcing Pregnancy
- Two Indicators: The 2% inflation target
- A Week After the Pacific Northwest Heat Wave, Study Shows it Was ‘Almost Impossible’ Without Global Warming
- Moving abroad can be expensive: These 5 countries will 'pay' you to move there
- Planes Sampling Air Above the Amazon Find the Rainforest is Releasing More Carbon Than it Stores
- Justice Department reverses position, won't support shielding Trump in original E. Jean Carroll lawsuit
- Ditch Drying Matte Formulas and Get $108 Worth of Estée Lauder 12-Hour Lipsticks for $46
- What to know about Tuesday’s US House primaries to replace Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz
- 4 ways around a debt ceiling crisis — and why they might not work
Ranking
- The Best Stocking Stuffers Under $25
- Gwen Stefani Gives Father's Day Shout-Out to Blake Shelton After Gavin Rossdale Parenting Comments
- DWTS’ Peta Murgatroyd and Maksim Chmerkovskiy Welcome Baby Boy on Father's Day
- Unsolved Mysteries: How Kayla Unbehaun's Abduction Case Ended With Her Mother's Arrest
- Charges tied to China weigh on GM in Q4, but profit and revenue top expectations
- Divers say they found body of man missing 11 months at bottom of Chicago river
- Inside Clean Energy: With a Pen Stroke, New Law Launches Virginia Into Landmark Clean Energy Transition
- Warming Trends: Outdoor Heaters, More Drownings In Warmer Winters and Where to Put Leftover Turkey
Recommendation
All That You Wanted to Know About She’s All That
Kate Middleton Gets a Green Light for Fashionable Look at Royal Parade
Inside Clean Energy: 6 Things Michael Moore’s ‘Planet of the Humans’ Gets Wrong
A Delta in Distress
Skins Game to make return to Thanksgiving week with a modern look
The Acceleration of an Antarctic Glacier Shows How Global Warming Can Rapidly Break Up Polar Ice and Raise Sea Level
Tom Brady, Justin Timberlake and More Stars Celebrate Father's Day 2023
Christopher Meloni, Oscar Isaac, Jeff Goldblum and More Internet Zaddies Who Are Also IRL Daddies