{"id":18394,"date":"2017-07-07T07:21:49","date_gmt":"2017-07-07T13:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=18394"},"modified":"2017-07-07T07:21:49","modified_gmt":"2017-07-07T13:21:49","slug":"county-officials-take-offense-at-voter-fraud-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/07\/county-officials-take-offense-at-voter-fraud-allegations\/","title":{"rendered":"County officials take offense at voter fraud allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stapleton\"<\/a>

Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton.<\/p><\/div>\n

Missoula County commissioners on Thursday accused the Montana secretary of state of using artificial data to drive a personal legislative agenda and called the tone of several recent emails sent by the newly elected official as both \u201cunprofessional\u201d and \u201cjuvenile.\u201d<\/p>\n

In one email response, Secretary of State Corey Stapleton went so far as to suggest he didn\u2019t have the time or interest to fight voter fraud. At the same time, however, he said he was willing to \u201cchange the rules\u201d to match what he described as rampant voter fraud in Missoula County.<\/p>\n

Missoula County commissioners said Thursday that enough was enough and agreed to respond to Stapleton as a unified board. Stapleton has not responded to county requests to discuss the issue in person, they said.<\/p>\n

Stapleton could not be reached Thursday for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t think of an instance where I\u2019ve seen a statewide elected official treat a staff person with such contempt, and with such unprofessionalism in his approach,\u201d Commissioner Dave Strohmaier said. \u201cOne of our employees has been wrongly accused of operating a slipshod election, and that completely warrants us to officially get on the record with a letter to the secretary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue stems back to February when Stapleton lobbied the Legislature to kill a GOP bill that would have allowed the special congressional election between Rob Quist and Greg Gianforte to be conducted by mail only. Counties had hoped to conduct the election by mail, arguing that staffing the voting polls would cost tens of thousands of extra dollars.<\/p>\n

Missoula County Elections Supervisor Rebecca Connors sent Stapleton an email that month, urging him to reconsider his position on the issue. The exchange from Stapleton\u2019s office went downhill from there, Connors said.<\/p>\n

\u201cReading the (Bozeman Daily) Chronicle article this morning was very disheartening, as I chalk it up to politics rather than the best interest of the taxpayers, voters and election administrators,\u201d Connors wrote in her initial email to Stapleton. \u201cThe financial and logistical burden placed on Missoula County will be enormous for one race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stapleton later called that email \u201cmean\u201d and said it set a bad precedent in his relationship with the Missoula County Elections Office.<\/p>\n

That relationship would sour further after the congressional election was finished. After conducting its canvassing, the Missoula County Elections Office officially rejected 91 ballots, though a Missoulian article had suggested it was 150.<\/p>\n

Despite being told otherwise, Stapleton stuck with the higher number and accused Missoula County of condoning voter fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cLater I believe you amended that number of illegal signatures on ballots down to 91\u2014that is just confirming what has become the culture of Missoula County not taking mail ballot fraud seriously,\u201d Stapleton wrote.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>\u201cLittering happens in public parks even when nobody is convicted of littering. Shoplifting occurs when nobody is convicted. Voter fraud continues in your county, whether you acknowledge it or not. You and the county attorneys are responsible for taking the law seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Stapleton has accused the county of voter fraud, he has not applied the duties of his office to investigate the matter, county officials said. Commissioners say there is nothing to investigate, since the rejected ballots were dismissed for legitimate reasons and are far less than the number of ballots rejected by other Montana counties.<\/p>\n

During the special election, Missoula County rejected 35 ballots for being late, 13 for lacking a signature and two because they lacked the proper identification. Connors said 41 others were rejected due to mismatched signatures, something that can happen over time due to age and illness.<\/p>\n

None of the 91 issues related to fraud, county officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing the same practices as all the other counties and following the letter of the law,\u201d Connors said Thursday. \u201cUnfortunately, (Stapleton) is taking this and using it as a platform to say fraud is rampant in Missoula.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Missoula County rejected 91 ballots, Yellowstone County rejected 528, Gallatin County 336 and Flathead County 207. Lewis and Clark County rejected 99.<\/p>\n

Stapleton makes no mention of those numbers, leading county officials to believe that he\u2019s attacking Missoula due to personal grudge and using false facts to push for his personal ambition to make changes to the state\u2019s voting system.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like answers to the questions on whether the 528 votes in Yellowstone are considered fraudulent as well, or is it just our 91 votes,\u201d Commissioner Cola Rowley said. \u201cIt\u2019s a legitimate question and he hasn\u2019t answered it. You\u2019re going to have elections where you reject ballots because that\u2019s the correct thing to do when signatures don\u2019t match. That\u2019s how you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his last letter, dated July 3, Stapleton again equated voter fraud to shoplifting and littering, and suggested that Missoula County had confirmed his point that it wasn\u2019t taking voter fraud seriously.<\/p>\n

He also maintained his stance that the 91 signatures were \u201cillegal\u201d and had been \u201csilently set aside on the shelf of indifference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m certainly willing to change the rules, legislation, to align enforcement with actual conduct,\u201d Stapleton wrote. \u201cIf you claim there\u2019s no fraud, or pooh-pooh what\u2019s happening as clerical error or roommate mistakes, I\u2019m not going to waste my time\u2014I have plenty to do. Voter fraud isn\u2019t something that inspires me.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last line left Missoula County officials scratching their head.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to his legal counsel who made it clear that Secretary Stapleton was trying to start dialogue to get legislative changes made in the 2019 legislative session,\u201d said Deputy Missoula County Attorney Matt Jennings. \u201cBut any conversation about legislative changes needs to start with some accuracy on what occurred, and I\u2019m concerned about the misleading statements from the secretary.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on\u00a0Missoula Current<\/a>, an independent online newspaper, of which\u00a0Martin Kidston is the founding editor.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Missoula County commissioners on Thursday accused the Montana secretary of state of using artificial data to drive a personal legislative agenda and called the tone of several recent emails sent by the newly elected official as both \u201cunprofessional\u201d and \u201cjuvenile.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":18395,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[702,6034,5222],"class_list":["post-18394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","category-news","tag-corey-stapleton","tag-elections","tag-missoula-county","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18394"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18397,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18394\/revisions\/18397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}