by Ken Toole | Dec 2, 2024 | Elections
An investigator with the Montana Human Rights Bureau issued a report finding that the Secretary of State’s office discriminated against Rina Fontana Moore when it emailed the Cascade County Commission urging them not to hire her for a position running the election office.
After removing election duties from Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant last December, the county commission opened an election administrator position. Rina Fontana Moore applied for the open position. In a highly suspect hiring process, the commission hired Terry Thompson, who had no experience or training in running elections. Fontana Moore has 16 years experience and extensive election administration training. (See our post about the hiring process: https://wtf406.com/?s=Rae+Grulkowski+)
Secretary Of State Urged County To Deny Fontana Moore Election Job
On February 14th, the Republican Secretary of State, Christi Jacobsen, sent an email to the Cascade County Commissioners urging them not to hire Fontana Moore: “Please do not hire Ms. Moore or a member of her administration as Cascade County’s Election Administrator. Doing so would directly undermine the voters of Cascade County, among other reasons.” Her letter closed, “Thank you and God Bless, Christi”. The next day the county commission voted to offer the job to Terry Thompson.
Commissioners Joe Briggs and Jim Larson said they were surprised by the email. Both said they felt it was inappropriate. Briggs said, “I took it as a personal political statement that was done inappropriately.” The county attorney’s office contacted the secretary of state’s office. Jacobsen’s legal counsel said she had a First Amendment right to make the comments. When contacted by The Electric, Jacobsen’s office did not respond.
Fontana Moore Files Discrimination Complaints
Eleven days later (February 27), Fontana Moore filed discrimination complaints with the Human Rights Bureau of the Department of Labor. \One complaint was filed against Cascade County for discrimination based on her political beliefs in denying her the election administrator position. The other was against the Montana Secretary of State for advocating a discriminatory action by Cascade County.
Merchant And Grulkowski Mum About Meeting With Secretary of State
On March 1, two days after Fontana Moore filed her complaints, Jenn Rowell of the Electric was at a meeting in the Capitol building in Helena. She saw County Commissioner Rae Grulkowski and Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant going into the Secretary of State’s office. They came out about 20 minutes later. The Electric contacted Grulkowski and Merchant and asked what their business was in the Secretary of State’s office and if county funds were spent on their visit. They did not respond.
Cascade County Settles With Fontana Moore
The Human Rights Bureau accepted Fontana Moore’s complaints and initiated an investigation. As part of the process, the parties in human rights complaints attempt to resolve their complaints through mediation. On October 4, the Cascade County Commission approved paying Moore $52,500 to settle the complaint against the county on the advice of their attorney. The settlement resolved the complaint.
Rae Grulkowski was the only county commissioner voting against the settlement. Her actions on the hiring committee clearly put the county at risk in the discrimination complaint. Ironically, the county paid for Grulkowski to have an attorney separate from the outside lawyer the county hired to defend against the complaint. (See our post on Grulkowski’s legal fees: https://wtf406.com/?s=Grulkowski+)
Secretary Of State Declines To Settle; Complaint Goes to Formal Hearing
The Secretary of State’s office declined to participate in mediation. Election administrator and former chief legal counsel for the Secretary of State’s office, Austin James, argued that Fontana Moore should not be appointed election administrator because she lost her 2022 reelection to Merchant for Cascade Clerk and Recorder. Since the case was not settled in mediation, the investigator completed her investigation and found that the Montana Secretary of State’s actions were discriminatory. The case will now move forward to a formal hearing.
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
by Ken Toole | Jul 13, 2024 | Energy/Utilities
Public Service Commissioner Randy Pinocci has had a lien filed on his property by the Braden Tract Sewer Association and Braden Tract Water Fund for non-payment of bills in the amount of $1,720. In addition, the districts are claiming Pinocci is responsible for moving a fence which is encroaching on its property at an estimated cost of $5,500.
Perhaps the greatest irony in this chapter of the long, sad saga of Pinocci’s behavior in public office is that, as a Public Service Commissioner, Pinocci is responsible for regulating public utilities similar to these two small local utilities. One of the biggest problems these businesses face is deadbeats not paying their bills. When that happens, other ratepayers pick up the tab. Pinocci either doesn’t understand that or he doesn’t care. Probably a bit of both.
As the Public Service Commissioner representing PSC District #1, which includes Cascade County, Pinocci earns an annual salary of $111,179. That does not include benefits like state retirement and health insurance. His wife, Svetlana, works in the elections office. She gets a good salary and county benefits. In addition, Pinocci has real estate appraised at a total value of $1,006,303. You would think he can afford to pay his water and sewer bills. . . like the rest of us. But Randy isn’t like the rest of us.
Pinocci seems to want to play politics more than do his job with the PSC. In the last election, he ran for Lieutenant Governor drawing his big paycheck from you and me the whole time. Then there is the fact that he was prosecuted for intimidating witnesses in a dispute over one of his rental properties last October. https://wtf406.com/2023/10/more-republican-police-blotter-pinocci-arrested-again/
A few weeks before that, he was arrested on a warrant for failure to appear. When he is not being arrested or prosecuted, he is galavanting around the state promoting bizarre conspiracy theories.
Thanks, in part, to an organized effort to get Democrats to “cross over” and vote in the Republican Primary here in Cascade County, voters got rid of some of the far right leaders in their party. Legislators Steven Galloway and Lola Sheldon-Galloway lost. County Commissioner Rae Grulkowski also was turned away by the voters (though the rumor mill is predicting she will be hired by Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant). Both Pinocci and Merchant also lost their bids to be elected as Republican Party precinct people. Maybe there’s some hope for sanity in the local Republican Party.
Pinocci’s term on the Public Service Commission ends in 2026. Who knows what he will run for next. Whatever it is, we can only hope he is defeated.

by Ken Toole | May 3, 2024 | Elections
It seems like all of the old rules went out the window with the election of Donald Trump in 2016. With the resources and energy of far-right groups like the Freedom Caucus, Moms for Liberty, American for Prosperity and others, the right flank of the Republican Party has taken over most of state and local government.
Here in Cascade County there is a long standing feud between far-right Republicans, known as the Freedom Caucus, led by legislators like Steven Galloway and Lola Sheldon-Galloway, and more traditional pro-corporate Republicans like Ed Buttrey and Steve Fitzpatrick. This election almost all legislative seats have contested Republican primaries pitting these two factions against each other. In addition, there is a hotly contested County Commission primary race between far-right incumbent Rae Grulkowski and local businessman Eric Hinebauch.
At the same time there is only one contested Democratic primary, the race for the Eastern Congressional District. The unfortunate fact is, no matter which Democratic candidate wins the primary, he will have virtually no chance of winning the seat in the general election. In short, there is not much reason to vote in the Democratic Primary here in Cascade County.
That brings us to the talk around town urging Democrats in Cascade County to vote in the Republican primary for the more reasonable of those candidates. Some folks are arguing that a few votes could make the difference between more nuts and more reasonable people in public office. They may be right, and the fact is that there is really nothing to lose given the lack of contested Democratic primaries here. Advocates of Democrats voting in the Republican primary, which is perfectly legal, say, “desperate times call for desperate measures|.”
The following is a list of the contested primaries and who are the more far-right candidates.
Cascade County Commission
Rea Grulkowski- Far Right
Eric Hinebauch
Senate District 13
Lola Sheldon-Galloway- Far Right
Josh Kassmier
House District 19
Hannah Trebas- Far Right
Darren Auger
House District 20
Steven Galloway- Far Right
Melisssa Nikolakkas
House District 21
Josh Osterman- Far Right
Ed Buttrey
House District 22
James Whitaker- Far Right
George Nikolakkas
House District 23
John Proud- Far Right
Pete Anderson- Far Right
Josh Denully
Eric Tillerman
by Ken Toole | Apr 12, 2024 | Schools
In a bid to promote his own campaign, School Board candidate Tony Rosales has been issuing a series of attacks on the administration of the Great Falls School District. While it probably takes Tony a few minutes to come up with his phony accusations, the district has clearly spent a lot of time and effort to set the record straight. And that’s too bad, because the staff has more important things to do than replying to weird accusations from a wanna-be politician.
Is This Really How We Want School Personnel Spending Their Time?
The Electric published a good story that takes Rosales’ accusations point by point and covers the district’s response. What becomes clear from this most recent story is that Rosales either doesn’t know what he is talking about or doesn’t care what the facts are, as long as he throws dirt on dedicated public employees to further his own political campaign. Probably a bit of both. For the complete story, follow this link to the Electric’s article. https://theelectricgf.com/2024/04/10/gfps-responds-to-concerns-from-board-candidate/
One of Rosales’ central accusations against the district is that a staff member, Lance Boyd, sits on the board of Peace Place, a local nonprofit dedicated to providing respite care for disabled children. Peace Place is a great program that gives parents time to do shopping and other tasks that can be very difficult for parents of kids with special needs. Rosales asserted that this was a conflict of interest since other providers of similar services in the community did not get that “business” from the district, with the implication being that funding was being channeled unfairly to Peace Place.
Hey Tony, Who’s Got a Conflict of Interest?
Responding to questions from the Electric, Rosales said that he discovered this “conflict of interest” at a local meeting on autism and decided to challenge the district. Rosales posted that it was a conflict of interest for Boyd to serve on the board, as the district refers students to Peace Place and pays for those services. He said that he heard about the situation from another provider who was at the meeting.”
The other provider, who was apparently complaining that he was not getting referrals from the district, is Kevin Leatherbarrow, the owner of Go and Grow. The district explained that it was not referring to them, because Leatherbarrow had previously told him they did not want to accept federal funding which the district receives.
Tony Rosales is the Chair of the local Libertarian Party. Leatherbarrow ran as a Libertarian for the Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2020. Leatherbarrow has filed to run for the legislature in this election cycle, again as a Libertarian. Rosales also filed to run for the legislature as a Libertarian in this cycle but withdrew, apparently to run for school board. Tony Rosales is currently serving as Kevin Leatherbarrow’s campaign treasurer.
If you liked the controversy and paralysis which took over county government after electing aggressive anti-government conspiracy theorists Rae Grulkowski and Sandra Merchant, you might want to consider voting for Tony Rosales. But if you want the school district to remain focused on its job, educating our kids, vote for Marlee Sunchild.