Clerks push timeline change after last‑minute petition dump; opponents warn of voter disenfranchisement

Sen. Mike Cuff introduced Senate Bill 226 to establish a rolling deadline for petition turn‑ins: under the bill as drafted, a petition page must be delivered to the county election administrator within four weeks of the oldest signature on that page, or the county may reject the filing and stop processing it.

County election administrators told the committee they brought the bill after a 2024 signature‑gathering cycle produced large, last‑minute deliveries — thousands of pages delivered in a very short window — that overwhelmed local offices and threatened constitutional deadlines for certification. Regina Plettenberg, Ravalli County election administrator and past president of the Montana Association of Clerk and Recorders, described stapled, bulky boxes arriving on the final day and the need to borrow staff from other counties to meet deadlines.

Austin James, representing Secretary of State Christy Jacobson, said courts have repeatedly held that procedural verification is essential and that the bill's rolling turnout requirement would preserve process integrity and give county election offices time to verify pages in a staged way.

Opponents objected that the proposed enforcement would punish electors rather than the campaign organizers who failed to timely deliver petitions. Jonathan Motl, a former commissioner of political practices, argued that when a petition is filed late the fault lies with the ballot committee, not signers: "The punishment should not be on the elector," he testified. Motl proposed treating late filing as a campaign practices violation with monetary penalties targeted at the sponsoring committee.

The ACLU and other opponents warned the four‑week rolling rule creates substantial logistical burdens for volunteer campaigns, may require frequent courier trips or daily mailings, and would increase printing, tracking and coordination costs. S.K. Rossi of the ACLU recommended a compromise: a mid‑cycle bulk turn‑in (for example, seven weeks before the final deadline) instead of a rolling four‑week obligation. The Montana Budget & Policy Center and initiative veterans raised similar concerns about volunteer capacity and potential chilling effects.

Sponsor Sen. Cuff defended the bill as a commonsense quality‑control measure and said clerks and the Secretary of State asked for statutory help after the 2024 cycle. He acknowledged potential amendments and invited the committee to craft a workable compromise.

No formal committee vote was taken at the hearing. The record includes multiple suggested alternatives — campaign penalties, a single mid‑cycle turn‑in date, or a longer (60‑day) window — and committee members asked stakeholders to negotiate possible language changes.