Voters Must Sign and Place Birth Years on Ballots for Them to Count this Election Cycle
The requirement comes as the result of a new law passed in the 2025 legislative session, and around the state, hundreds of voters’ ballots are being rejected thanks to a lack of birth date or providing inaccurate information
By Mariah Thomas
As municipal elections continue around the state, Montana voters are subject to a new law requiring they sign and provide their birth date on their ballot’s signature envelope for it to be counted.
The new law, which passed in the 2025 legislative session, has caused hundreds of ballots to be rejected across the state, including more than 400 ballots each in both Yellowstone and Missoula counties, per reporting from the Montana Free Press.
As of the end-of-day on Monday, Oct. 27, Flathead County election officials have rejected 220 ballots, according to election manager Paula Buff.
Of those, 166 were rejected because they either did not have a year, or because the voter wrote an incorrect year on the signature envelope. The other 54 ballots that have been rejected were either because voters did not provide a signature, or because their signature did not match with the one on file.
Buff said the county mailed out just under 69,000 ballots on Oct. 17. At the end of the day Monday, the number of accepted ballots sat at 8,833, though that figure increased throughout the day Tuesday as election officials accepted more ballots.
The figures from the end of Monday marked a 2.49% ballot rejection rate thus far. She said that’s a small uptick from May’s school and special purpose election, before the new legislation took effect.
“I don’t think, overall, Flathead County, at least up to this point, has been affected to the extent that some of the other large counties have — Yellowstone, Missoula County, that kind of thing,” Buff said. “And I don’t really have an explanation for that.”
She said it’s possible Flathead County electors are paying more attention than others around the state. She added the county’s elections office has shared information about the rule change on its website and social media accounts.
Voters whose ballots are rejected receive a phone call from the elections office, along with a ballot rejection notice in the mail, which provides instructions on how to reconcile the rejected ballot.
Buff also encouraged voters who want to check their ballot’s status or voters who haven’t received their ballot yet to visit the Secretary of State’s “My Voter Portal.” The portal provides up-to-date information on one’s voter registration status and their ballot’s status. She said if voters haven’t received their ballots or need to register to vote to cast a ballot in this election, they can visit the elections office and get help casting their votes.
“I think, you know, electors have a lot of options,” Buff said. “It’s just knowing, I think, the first step really is to go to that My Voter Portal to figure out exactly what their registration status looks like and what the status of their ballot is, and then take whatever necessary action after looking at that.”
At this point, if voters haven’t returned their ballots by mail, Buff encouraged them to drop it off at the county elections office. The Flathead County elections office is located at 290B N. Main St. in Kalispell.