by Helena Lovick | Feb 18, 2024 | Elections
Great Falls, Montana
Electioneering noun the activity of trying to persuade people to vote for a particular political party.
The blatantly partisan slant of our Cascade County Elections Office has been a disturbing constant since the 2022 election and take over by the new Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant and her election conspiracy theory crowd. For example, last spring, the office had anti-library levy materials ahead of the library levy vote. Furthermore, it was reported to us that several cars parked in the parking lot had these stickers:
Despite the ironic double negative, this sticker was distributed by opponents of the library levy.
The logo on these bumper stickers were associated with the “Liberty and Values MT” group that we wrote about previously when their hateful billboards went up around town.
These hateful billboards were up around Great Falls ahead of the Spring 2023 library levy.
What are they up to now?
Despite all of the public pushback and oversight, the Elections Office continues to act inappropriately and unethically.
As of February 16, 2024, the Elections office has several Bible verses and elephant figurines visibly decorating the space. BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. Prominently displayed was this completely unacceptable photo.
Do our “leaders” think this is an acceptable decoration in an Elections Office?
Yeah, let’s not pretend to misunderstand what a photo with the words “train them up young” and a child hugging an elephant means. This is beyond unacceptable electioneering. Utterly unethical bullshit. An elections officer holds one of the most important roles in our country’s free and fair elections. Citizens deserve a neutral space for their participation in the democratic process.
Join us in letting our county commissioners know that we won’t stand for these materials to be displayed in OUR elections office. They need to come down immediately.
You can email the Cascade County Commissioners directly at: [email protected]
by Ken Toole | Jan 23, 2024 | Elections
Responding to Tim Sheehy’s Editorial Rhetoric
U.S. Senate Candidate Tim Sheehy has a semi-autobiographical editorial circulating around the state. Like most puff pieces from politicians, it begins by saying, “I never thought of getting into politics until . . .fill in the blank here.” In Sheehy’s case it’s Afghanistan. It also gives him a chance to highlight his military service while condemning President Biden.
He must have forgotten that Donald Trump had reduced U.S. troops in Afghanistan by 13,100. In November 2020, he ordered that all troops would be evacuated by January 2021. Typical of Trump, he changed his mind and ordered withdrawal of more troops, instead leaving a total U.S. military force of 2,500 facing the Taliban in the strongest military position it had been in since 2001. The truth is U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan was plagued with problems for the 20 years we were there, just like the Russians before us. Pinning it on Joe Biden ignores facts and history. But hey, this is politics.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf
But back to Sheehy’s editorial. He then goes on to frame his decision to run for Senate in a “call to duty” format with a dollop of family values and business experience. You may have noticed that we didn’t say “private sector” experience. That’s because earnings from his company, Bridger Aerospace, which generates about $5 million a year for Sheehy, is mostly working on government contracts fighting forest fires. He also owns luxury houses in Big Sky, Polson, and Bozeman, in addition to a share of a large ranch outside Martinsdale.
And like most rich people, he has lots of investments. He says his net worth is between $74 and $200 million. (A complaint has been filed against Sheehy for the lack of specific information in his disclosure forms by a group called End Citizens United.) While he is condemning China, he’s investing in Chinese companies. While attacking environmental investment strategies, he is investing in “sustainable” software products to manage carbon emissions. He even removed the words “fighting on the front lines of climate change” from the Bridger Aerospace website after announcing he was running for Senate. https://montanafreepress.org/2023/11/03/taking-a-look-at-tim-sheehys-finances/
Like most rich people, Sheehy had considerable advantages provided by his family. He grew up in a multi-million dollar lake house in Shoreview, Minnesota, a wealthy suburb of St. Paul. He attended a private high school before being accepted to the Naval Academy. It’s hard to say when he became a resident of Montana. In 2016 Sheehy reported the Shoreview house as his residence in campaign reports of his donations to Greg Gianforte.
But probably the most disturbing thing about Sheehy’s editorial is his parroting of Trump’s dark conspiratorial view of America. He writes. “. . .the alternative is to leave these Marxists who weaponize cancerous ideologies like DEI and ESG and don’t represent our values in control—and to me, that’s unacceptable.” Most of us have no idea what DEI and ESG means (DEI- Diversity Equity and Inclusion/ ESG- Environmental, Social, Governance). His demonization and use of the term Marxist to describe his political opponents is straight out of Senator Joe McCarthy’s playbook. Ironically, this kind of red-baiting is fundamentally anti-American.
by WTF 406 Staff | Feb 20, 2023 | Elections
Before we get into the meat of some concerning personnel changes at the Cascade County Clerk and Recorder’s office, we need to remind ourselves that hiring political cronies and firing or harassing people because they worked for political opponents is illegal. Got that?
Senior Election Administrator Leaves Merchant’s Office
Since defeating long-time Clerk and Recorder Rina Moore by a mere 31 votes, Sandra Merchant has begun remaking the office to fit her conspiracy-laced agenda. First, Election Supervisor Lynn Deroche, who has worked in the Clerk and Recorder’s office for 16 years, has taken another job in county government at a much lower salary. It’s not clear whether she resigned or was fired. Deroche said that she provided notice that she was resigning after being frozen out of interoffice communication by Merchant.
As an example, Deroche said she was not allowed to participate in interviews to fill an open election specialist position, a position she supervised. Deroche said that after a month of being isolated in the office and just three days before she was scheduled to leave her position, Merchant asked her to explain how to conduct some up-coming elections. Deroche says she told Merchant three days was not enough time to teach Merchant how to administer an election. Some time later Deroche says she was summoned to the Human Resources Office and told she did not need to return to the Clerk and Recorder’s office but would still receive her last couple of days’ pay. End result is that the election supervisor job has been left vacant.
New Election Specialist – Connection to Merchant and Commissioner Grulkowski
In the meantime, interviews proceeded to fill an elections specialist position in the office. There was an applicant who was already in a temporary position in the office. She subsequently withdrew her application. The job was listed with the County Human Resource Office. County Commissioner Rea Grulkowski and Sandra Merchant were interviewers. Grulkowski, who also came into office in the last election, is an election denier who’s bizarre conspiracy theories were the subject of a New York Times article in October of 2021. (WTF 406 covered Grulkowski’s conspiracy theories and the New York Times piece in a previous article https://wtf406.com/2022/09/facts-no-match-for-fear-in-county-commission-race/ )
When the election specialist interview process was completed, the position was given to Devereaux Biddick. WTF406 has previously written about Biddick’s participation in the election denier group active in Cascade County. Last fall we reported, “On July 29 County Commission candidate Rae Grulkowski was back in front of the County Commission, this time presenting a letter from Devereaux Biddick. In this letter Biddick alleged that the county primary election did not conform to standards set by the Secretary of State. She requested two precincts be ‘reviewed for reconciliation.’”https://wtf406.com/2022/09/the-big-lie-in-cascade-county/
The election specialist job which Biddick received has starting pay of almost $40,000 per year and includes a full benefit package. The qualification statement for the position included a High School Diploma, GED or HSE, and three years of progressively responsible office experience in a team environment that preferably includes one year in an election-related environment and one year of legal experience and terminology.
WTF406 does not have access to Biddick’s application materials yet, but we would certainly hope that her experience dogging county officials with election fraud mythology was not included as “relevant” experience for the elections specialist position. That would be kind of like putting a flat earther in charge of NASA.
Is This Just the Beginning?
The fact is that recently elected County Commissioner Grulkowski and Clerk and Recorder Merchant, who have worked extensively together on their election denier mythology prior to being elected, have now offered a full-time permanent position to a friend of theirs who worked on the same effort. Biddick could be just the beginning of Sandra Merchant’s opportunities to move her cronies from the election denier crowd into government jobs at the Clerk and Recorder’s Office. The election supervisor job will be open thanks to Deroche’s resignation. In addition, the office has traditionally hired additional temporary employees to help during the election cycle.
We began this article by pointing out that this kind of cronyism is illegal. Specifically, the Governmental Code of Fair Practices prohibits discrimination in government employment based on political beliefs. If any of the unsuccessful applicants for the position decided to file a complaint under that law and won, we would all get to pay for the insider dealing of our newly elected county officials. We’ll stay tuned and keep watching.
