by Ken Toole | Nov 10, 2024 | Elections
By now we all know that election day in Cascade County was chaotic. WTF406 has received numerous reports from people about waits as long as seven hours for voters. This election was characterized by confusion, poor organization, and staff who were poorly trained and disorganized.
Responsibility for this mess should be laid directly on the shoulders of the County Commission. Going all the way back to the two years before the election of Sandra Merchant and Rae Grulkowski, it was obvious the national election denier movement had arrived in Cascade County. Former election administrator Rina Moore and her staff were constantly harassed and confronted by people presenting bizarre conspiracy theories straight from the “My Pillow Guy” and his Montana minions, western Montana legislators Theresa Manzella and Brad Tschida. Locally, the Republican Pachyderm Club became a launching pad for promoting election disruption under the guidance of local legislators Steven and Lola Galloway. See our previous post https://wtf406.com/?s=Manzella
The election denier Sandra Merchant defeated veteran clerk and recorder Rina Moore and the shit show began. Merchant proved to be completely incompetent and ultimately the County Commissioners removed election administration from her office. But not before she managed to replace almost all of the clerk and recorder staff with her cronies in the local election denier ranks. When the County Commission hired a new administrator for elections, they selected Terry Thompson as the new administrator in a completely corrupt hiring decision driven by Commissioner Rae Grulkowski. The table was set for the mess we saw on election day. Grulkowski Plays Dirty– Did We Really Expect Anything Else? – What the Funk
We asked a couple of people who were there all day and into the night for their observations. Below we excerpted some of their comments.
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Observer #1
On November 5, 2024, I started my day at 6:30 am at the Montana Expo Park observing the voting process. Little did I know what was in store for the next 15 hours.
Election judges early in the day seemed confused about provisional ballots, inactive voters, and some other special circumstances. When judges would signal, by waving a flag, for assistance on questions there would be an approximately 10-minute delay or more in receiving help. Many times, the Election Official did not have the answer. Judges also received conflicting information at times.
Unfortunately, the lines became impossibly long. This happened within 30 minutes of the polls opening. Some voters stood in line for up to 7 hours. Numerous people left without voting out of frustration and need to get to appointments or work. There were 2 to 3 people at computers registering voters and resolving other issues regarding voter registration. Individual voters took it upon themselves to set up chairs that were stacked up against the walls. Why did this not happen before election day? Line management was nonexistent. When the polls closed at 8:00pm, there were over 500 hundred people waiting in line.
People were given conflicting information at times as to where they should line up.Staff were not prepared to handle the large number of people that were registering and having to solve issues with their ballot. Separate stations would have solved the issue and cut down on the time people had to stand in line. Signage would have been very beneficial in directing people where they should go. There were no such signs.
Voters were frustrated after standing in line for hours and then told they were in the wrong line and had to move. Poor communication and information.
There were not enough people staffing the polling place. Why didn’t the Commission forsee this? Many counties will pull employees from other departments to assist on Election Day, why was this an option here.
It was very noticeable the lack of experience of the Election Officials and the Administrator. It was exhausting watching the frustration and fatigue of the people who took the time to turn out and vote. High praises to those people who stuck it out. Mistakes will happen, but not on the scale that I witnessed. Clearly many changes need to be made.
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Observer #2
Witnessed multiple voters leaving the lines in the morning saying that they had to get to work. I informed them that if they came back before 8pm they would be assisted. A couple that I remembered did come back
Mass confusion is the best way I can describe what was happening in the polling place. Issues of not knowing where to go or what line to get into were a problem from the start of the day to the end of the day.
Late registration line was set up to serpentine in a side garage. This space was not sufficient in size. The line started weaving into the main hall and creating confusion on where to go or how to get to their precinct table.
A secondary line was set up for handicapped voters. However non-handicapped people got in the line and, once they got up to the late registration table, they were informed that they are not supposed to be in that line and sent to the main late registration line. The handicap line was at most 2 hours and now the voters were sent to the other line that had a wait time of several hours.
One voter came in wearing a Make America Great Again hat. He was approached by Elections staff and was asked to remove it. The Voter took the hat off and put it on his child. I notified the Elections staff about this and he informed me that the child is unable to vote so it doesn’t matter.
I informed the Elections staff of an individual wearing a “Pray to end abortion” pin. While I was informing the worker, a Cascade County Attorney was standing nearby. She informed me that it would be hard to say if that is electioneering and that they will not tell her to remove it.
The Election judges at the precinct tables were informed to wave flags to get the attention of Election staff for assistance. Multiple times I timed them and they waved the flag from as little as 1 minute up to 6 Minutes.Some did not ever get help and would send the voter to get the help that they needed.
Julie Bass was walking around assisting voters. She was not signed in as a poll watcher or observer.
One of the biggest concerns that was noted to me is the severe lack of security. Anyone was able to walk into the count board area or the late registration area. One gentleman from the GOP kept walking behind the counter to talk to election officials. Voters were going behind the counter for assistance and going by the ballots. Extra assistance was brought in and not vetted.
by Ken Toole | Nov 8, 2024 | Elections
Photo: County Commissioner Rae Grulkowski and Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a national group famous for responding to hate group activity, issued a series of three articles examining how disinformation, and those peddling it, are affecting the election process in its publication, Hatewatch. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2024/11/05/how-community-leaders-and-officials-two-states-took-election-deniers
WTF406 copied the section of Hatewatch which covered events in the Cascade County election office below.
Cascade County removes voting processes from election denier
At the other side of the country, the 2020 elections were handily decided in favor of Trump. Republicans won all the local races for the Montana Legislature in Cascade County. Yet Cascade County still found election deniers pushing lies and conspiracy theories. In 2022, an election denier won the race for Cascade County clerk and recorder, a position that administers elections in the county. The victory didn’t last long.
Ahead of the 2022 general election, local election deniers kept showing up at Cascade County Commission meetings questioning the security of local elections, requesting access to voting machines, calling for the elimination of ballot drop boxes and asking for a hand-recount of ballots from 2020. Outside of the county commission meetings, they approached ballot-box watchers about their personal information and political affiliations while also asking for the names and contact information for all election judges since 2020.
“They’ve no right to find out what political party they [ballot-box watchers] might belong to or if they belong to one or what their names are,” then-Cascade County Commissioner Don Ryan told the local press. “They’re asking those questions. That, to me, is kind of an intimidation.”
Many of the tactics used and requests made by the election deniers mirror those used in Georgia and across the country. Local deniers cited discredited conspiracy theorist and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell as a source for their claims.
Following the 2022 general election, county staff and election officials were preparing provisional and military ballots to be counted, a significant task since the county is home to an Air Force base. Staff called law enforcement when they noticed election deniers circling the building and waiting for the election crew to leave for the night. The election deniers took videos and photos of the election workers and their vehicle license plate numbers. Staff told local media they were afraid and worried this type of harassment could escalate to physical violence.
Election mismanagement harms democracy
With the election deniers and the far right focused on local organizing in 2022, Sandra Merchant, a medical coder with no experience working elections, ran against the 16-year incumbent, Rina Moore, for the position of Cascade County clerk and recorder.
Merchant said she was running for the office because “Election security is a big topic right now,” and she felt that “oversight by the people is necessary to keep the government accountable.”
In an email to Hatewatch, Merchant said she attended a few meetings held by the local election deniers before running for office, but she said she had been “interested in election integrity for a long time.”
The race with Moore was close. A recount declared Merchant the winner by fewer than 40 votes out of just under 29,400 cast. Election deniers showed up at the recount, sporting camouflage, sharing false conspiracy theories and watching the recount with binoculars even though it was happening only a few feet away.
Merchant’s tenure in office was marked by errors, mismanagement of elections and scrutiny from the community. In smaller local elections, community members reported problems such as not receiving their ballots, voters being turned away from the polls, voters receiving multiple ballots, ineligible voters receiving ballots and other irregularities. Her performance led the local library board to successfully sue to have a special monitor appointed to oversee its mill levy election.
A local election protection committee steps in
As the mistakes piled up, concerned community members formed the Election Protection Committee. Jasmine Taylor, the committee’s coordinator, wrote in a blog post that it was created in response to “the ineptitude of Sandra Merchant and the chaos happening within the Cascade County clerk and recorder’s office.” In addition to pointing out mistakes Merchant had made with elections, the committee noted she stacked her office with local election deniers. The Election Protection Committee began campaigning for the Cascade County Commission to remove election duties from Merchant’s office.
According to Taylor, the committee used its “intensive oversight” of county processes to gather information about the problems. This involved going to every county commission meeting to be a source of information for the community and the media. At crucial moments, the committee turned people out for rallies in front of the clerk and recorder’s office.
The committee’s leadership also met consistently with county commissioners and presented documentation of the errors committed by Merchant’s office. “We were going into these meetings with commissioners with 40 pages of errors,” Taylor explained. “Here are 40 voters, and this is what’s wrong in their ballots.” That evidence had a “tremendous impact,” Taylor noted, in getting the conservative commissioners to realize the issue was about elections and not politics.
“It doesn’t really matter if it’s malfeasance or incompetence, because at the end of the day, even if it’s just incompetence, you [county commissioners] have liability,” Taylor said they stressed to the commissioners. “If voters’ rights are being violated, you have liability.”
Despite the controversy, Merchant did little to distance herself from election deniers and hard-right extremists. In May 2023, she did an interview with James White of Northwest Liberty News. Northwest Liberty’s Rumble site features videos of White interviewing a wide range of antigovernment extremists, including Oath Keepers’ Stewart Rhodes, Ammon Bundy, Constitutional Sheriff and Peace Officers’ Richard Mack and Sam Bushman.
In August 2023, Merchant met with infamous election conspiracy theorist Douglas Frank at her office before he gave a community presentation that evening. Frank travels the country pushing false conspiracy theories about voting machines and urging people to investigate supposed fraud in their areas. Merchant told a journalist it was interesting and encouraged people to follow his advice. Frank told attendees that evening to “rise up” and urged attendees not to call law enforcement, but rather grab their guns when confronted by peaceful protesters.
By December 2023, Cascade County commissioners held a meeting to vote on removing duties from Merchant’s office. Nearly 100 residents testified for nearly seven hours, before the commission voted 2-1 to remove election duties from Merchant and place them under an election administrator housed under the commission.
“It was politically motivated,” Merchant told Hatewatch about the decision. “After I won, and before I had set foot in the office,” Merchant stated, “they said they were going to have me removed.” Merchant did not address the accusations of election errors that were cited in her removal.
The Election Protection Committee treated public officials with respect and presented evidence. According to Taylor, the election deniers led with name-calling, threats and volatility.
The committee also kept their eye on the local problem before them, declining to engage with election deniers on the debunked disinformation championed by Lindell and Frank. Instead, the committee focused on what was happening locally when it came to election problems affecting irrigation districts, city commission races and levy elections for the public library and schools. “We are talking hyper-local,” Taylor said. “Those people [election deniers], for the life of them, could not get off of those national narratives. All they’re doing is conspiracy theories.”
Asked if she had advice for other communities, Taylor said the biggest issue is controlling the narrative. “Establishing credibility is really important,” she said. “Grassroots local really works when you have a group of dedicated people.”
Editor’s note: This is the third in a three-part series.
Part I: Election disinformation harms communities and democracy
Part II: Cottage Industry of Conspiracy Theorists Peddles Mistrust of Elections
