Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
House Bill 0058, introduced by Rep. Geraldine Custer (R-Forsyth) at the request of Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch, is basically a clean-up bill intended to bring several sections of the Montana Codes Annotated up to date. It provides no partisan advantage, and thus probably won’t incur partisan wrath. Most if not all legislatures routinely pass bills to clean-up the statutes.
But HB-0058 does contain a section (below), intended to provide better public notice for absentee ballot counting boards, that only updates the MCA to the effective end of the pre-internet era.
Current law requires publishing the notice in the official newspaper of the county, a requirement that predates radio and television, and posting a notice in the elections administrator’s office by the close of business on election eve. HB-0058 retires the note on the elections administrator’s office door, and gives the administrator the option of publishing the notice in a newspaper or on radio or television.
But HD-0058 does not require publishing the notice on the elections administrator’s website. In fact, that’s not even an official option.
Why not? Why the Devil not?
Why should a citizen have to listen to radio or watch television, or subscribe to a newspaper, or visit a public library every day, to read an official notice when publication on the internet costs virtually nothing and is accessible to a large portion of the electorate? Publishing just on radio, for example, effectively hides the notice from people with hearing deficits. HB-0058’s failure to require publication on the internet makes no sense. It’s only rationale is “this is the way we’ve always done it.”
Here’s how I would modify the salient section in HB-0058:
Not more than 10 or less than 2 days before an election, the election administrator shall post on the election administrator’ official website, or on the county’s official website and in addition shall have the option of broadcasting on radio or television, as provided in 2-3-105 through 2-3-107, or publishing in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, a notice indicating the method that will be used for counting absentee ballots and the place and time that the absentee ballots will be counted on election day
That small change would bring this section of the MCA into the internet age. And the rest of the MCA should be modified to follow suit. There are no good arguments for pretending that history stopped in 1990. (Actually, MCA 2-3-105, which governs notification by radio and television, was adopted half a century ago, in 1963; and before 1963, in 1947.)
Were my proposed modification of HB-0058 adopted, howls of outrage would issue from newspapers and radio and television stations, who would fear a loss of revenue from publishing the official record (a gravy train newspapers have ridden since Gutenberg invented moveable type). They would argue that the internet is not secure, that it’s hackable, unreliable. That would surprise no one, of course. On their editorial pages or broadcasts, our local mainstream media righteously decry welfare for women and children, for the hungry and homeless, for PBS and NPR. But they believe with equal fervor that their official record subsidies from local government are more American than apple pie, and most likely mandated by Divine Providence.
The MSM’s most potent argument, of course, is that politicians who mess with the pocketbooks of those who buy ink by the barrel and electrons by the googolplex-to-the-googolplex may not find the MSM helpful come re-election time. How many Montana legislators would have the courage to defy the MSM even when that defiance would save voters money and improve access to government? We’ll find out when HB-0058 goes to committee and markup.
Section 13-15-105, MCA, is amended to read:
“13-15-105.Notices relating to absentee ballot counting board.