by WTF 406 Staff | Dec 14, 2023 | Abortions Rights, Elections, Militia and Hate Groups
Well, you probably already heard about the marathon County Commission meeting to take testimony about eliminating election administration from Clerk and Recorder, Sandra Merchant. For the record, the Commission decided the right thing to do was have elections handled by someone who knows what they are doing, a novel thought! We’ll be publishing more on that later.
This post focuses on one of the more bizarre claims made by a Merchant supporter. There were plenty of weird statements, but we think Representative Steven Galloway takes the cake. After waiting almost to the end of public comment, Galloway rose to impart his wisdom to the Commissioners. Saying he is concerned about the county’s ability to find qualified applicants to administer elections, Galloway continued, “You can’t find employees, because the population is decreasing – through people not having kids, having abortions, we’ve got folks that are retiring.”
Check out the full article here: https://dailymontanan.com/2023/12/12/cascade-county-clerk-and-recorder-stripped-of-election-duties/
So, let’s look a little more closely at Galloway’s assertion. First, is the population of Montana really declining? Well, the answer to that one is “No.” Since 2010, Montana’s population grew 13.3%. Of course Cascade County is not seeing the same growth as Gallatin, Missoula and Flathead Counties. During the same period, Cascade County grew 4.1%. https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/population-and-demographics/our-changing-population/state/montana/
https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/population-and-demographics/our-changing-population/state/montana/county/cascade-county/
But the thing that really caught our attention was his assertion that abortion is a contributing cause to our labor shortage. In 2021, 1,728 abortions were performed in Montana. (FYI of those 73% were chemical). Montana’s population in 2021 was 1.104 million. Don’t rush for your calculator, that amounts to 00.0015%. Hardly a big enough number to cause an unemployment problem. But facts coming from Merchant’s supporters were in short supply during the meeting.
If Galloway really wants to do something about the labor market, he should get his head out of his right-wing play book and consider supporting reasonable immigration reform, rather than building a barbed wire fence around the country.
by Jasmine Taylor | Dec 10, 2023 | Elections
Late last week, an alarming and factually inaccurate post appeared on the Cascade County Website. The Election Protection Committee responded, asking the County to remove the post immediately. Read the full letter below:
To: Cascade County Commissioners Joe Brigg, Jim Larson, Rea Grulkowski County Clerk and Recorder, Sandra Merchant and County Attorney Josh Raki.
Greetings,
We are writing to respond to a post placed on the County Elections Website lobbying the public to oppose Resolution 23-62. We believe the post is highly inappropriate. It is also inaccurate. For example, the first sentence in bright red block letters states: “To all registered voters in Cascade County- your right to vote is in jeopardy! Regardless of how the controversy over the resolution is resolved no one will lose their right to vote.
The next sentence states, “Two of the County Commissioners have stated their intention to nullify the 14,000+ votes that were cast November 8, 2022, for the current Clerk & Recorder/Elections Administrator.” No county commissioners have stated an intention to nullify any votes. The argument is ridiculous. Anytime a political organization changes the law, you could say that it has “nullified” the votes of the supporters who adopted the law in the first place.
The post goes on to say the resolution is ….”overthrowing the election that took place and appointing a person of their choosing-not chosen by the people-to run the elections in the future.” The fact is Sandra Merchant will remain the Clerk and Recorder. She will continue to receive a salary, she will still have an office, oversee the vitals records, recordings and internal auditing functions of the position.
If passed, this resolution is changing the duties of the Clerk and Recorder’s office which is clearly within the purview of the County Commission. In fact this has already been done in seven Montana counties and more are likely to follow. There was no hue and cry when the accounting functions were removed from the clerk and recorder’s office. This is not a new idea; Commissioner Briggs brought this proposal forward long before Sandra Merchant was elected because it has been his belief that the election official should be a nonpartisan position.
With all of that said, given Sandra Merchant’s poor performance and the continuing litigation being faced by the county thanks to her errors and incompetence, we are fully in support of removing the election duties from her supervision and placing them in the hands of an experienced administrator supervised by the Commission.
We request that the unethical post be removed from the website with a statement that it was both inaccurate and inappropriate. We are researching the legality of county resources being used to lobby for a political position on a legally presented resolution.
Ken Toole for The Election Protection Committee
