Working For You, With You!

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Despite what Christi Jacobsen, Corey Stapleton, and the men dressed in Revolutionary War costumes in front of the county courthouse want you to believe, Montana’s elections are safe and secure. 

Montana’s elections are among the safest in the US and, by extension, the world. Through the work of Montana’s County Government-based clerks and elections deputies, Montana can provide world-class election reporting and security with few instances of fraud.

According to the Heritage Foundation – a conservative think tank – there have been two cases of voter fraud over the past 40 years of Montana elections. The first was a man who submitted his ex-wife’s ballot without her permission in 2011; the second was a man who submitted a voter registration form under the name of “Miguel Raton” (“Mickey Mouse” in Spanish) in 2021. Furthermore, an audit by then-Secretary of State Cory Stapleton in 2020 revealed zero cases of voter fraud.

And yet, current Secretary Christi Jacobsen requested a slate of restrictive voter-access policies from the 2021 Montana legislature. Those bills tried to end same-day voter registration, prohibit the use of student I.D.s for voting purposes, and significantly restrict third-party ballot collection. Then, despite the failures to hold up in court, Jacobsen proceeded to illegally and wrongfully advertise falsehoods, particularly in markets likely to vote against her religious and national political beliefs.

The constitutional right to vote extends to every eligible Montanan – a fact corroborated by the federal district court that ruled Jacobsen's laws “severely burden the right to vote of Montana voters, particularly Native American voters, students, the elderly, and voters with disabilities.”

Jacobsen's continuing efforts to restrict every Montanan’s ability to vote is a disqualifier for the office she holds, plain and simple. She’s since appealed her case to the Montana Supreme Court, spending tens of thousands - soon to be hundreds of thousands - of the public’s tax dollars trying to implement illegal protections to stop a problem that doesn’t exist in Montana.

I am committed to upholding Montana’s excellent election security laws and procedures – cases of actual voter fraud must remain vanishingly rare. I’m also committed to making sure every eligible Montanan not only has the right to vote but also the ability to do so without enduring undue hardship. And lastly, I’m committed to supporting our county government officials, who are the true front line and defense against voter fraud in Montana.

The Montana Secretary of State’s business portal – an inescapable journey for every business owner and organization founder in the state - is an antiquated nightmare of bureaucratic inefficiency. Years of building customer service centers for the most extensive media organizations in the US helped me develop genuine, service-focused, and efficient teams. Our business office should be helping, not hindering, Montana’s small businesses as they build back our economy. 

The Business Services Division must remain competent, accommodating, and fast. We will do our work quickly and accurately and let Montana’s business community get back to doing what it does best: growing Montana’s diverse private sector.

Every time a business is started, or a non-profit is formed, SoS assists in filing official registrations, articles of organization, assumed business names, and trademarks.

As a small business owner myself, I can attest that those services have suffered under the current Secretary of State and her mentor, Corey Stapleton. From the user end, work is more complicated and less efficient. Horror stories of week-long turnarounds for functions that are automated processes in most states are commonplace. Overbilling (double, even triple) Montana’s small businesses and then fighting in court, using Montana tax dollars, to avoid processing a refund is an unacceptable level of service to the business community.

If a coffee shack on the corner can refund a two-week-old transaction promptly, the Secretary of State sure as heck should be able to.

As your next Secretary of State, I will work to restore user experience and efficiency in the Business Services Division while keeping costs down. I will ensure small businesses and organizations get the same attention as large corporations. And I will ensure that my staff and all local officials have the tools they need to keep our economic engines humming.

Montana’s hard-working businesses and nonprofits deserve nothing less.