Montana

Abortion measure has signatures to qualify for Montana ballot, supporters say

Published

2 years ago

July 20, 2024

Abortion measure has signatures to qualify for Montana ballot, supporters say

An initiative to ask voters if they want to protect the right to a pre-viability abortion in Montana’s constitution has enough signatures to appear on the November ballot, supporters said Friday.

County election officials have verified 74,186 voter signatures, more than the 60,359 needed for the constitutional initiative to go before voters. It has also met the threshold of 10% of voters in 51 House Districts — more than the required 40 districts, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights said.

What You Need To Know

An initiative to ask voters if they want to protect the right to a pre-viability abortion in Montana’s constitution has enough signatures to appear on the November ballot, abortion rights supporters say

Montanans Supporting Reproductive Rights reported Friday that counties have confirmed over 74,000 signatures; the petition needed over 60,000 to qualify for the ballot

Still pending is whether the signatures of inactive voters should count toward the total; a Helena judge ruled this week that they should

The Secretary of State’s Office is asking the Montana Supreme Court to block that order

“We’re excited to have met the valid signature threshold and the House District threshold required to qualify this critical initiative for the ballot,” Kiersten Iwai, executive director of Forward Montana and spokesperson for Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights said in a statement.

Still pending is whether the signatures of inactive voters should count toward the total.

Montana’s secretary of state said they shouldn’t, but it didn’t make that statement until after the signatures were gathered and after some counties had begun verifying them.

A Helena judge ruled Tuesday that the qualifications shouldn’t have been changed midstream and said the signatures of inactive voters that had been rejected should be verified and counted. District Judge Mike Menahan said those signatures could be accepted through next Wednesday.

The state has asked the Montana Supreme Court to overturn Menahan’s order, but it will have no effect on the initiative qualifying for the ballot.

“We will not stop fighting to ensure that every Montana voter who signed the petition has their signature counted,” Iwai said. “The Secretary of State and Attorney General have shown no shame in pulling new rules out of thin air, all to thwart the will of Montana voters and serve their own political agendas.”

Republican Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen must review and tabulate the petitions and is allowed to reject any petition that does not meet statutory requirements. Jacobsen must certify the general election ballots by Aug. 22.

The issue of whether abortion was legal was turned back to the states when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Montana’s Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that the state constitutional right to privacy protects the right to a pre-viability abortion. But the Republican controlled Legislature passed several bills in 2023 to restrict abortion access, including one that says the constitutional right to privacy does not protect abortion rights. Courts have blocked several of the laws, but no legal challenges have been filed against the one that tries to overturn the 1999 Supreme Court ruling.

Montanans for Election Reform, which also challenged the rule change over petition signatures, has said they believe they have enough signatures to ask voters if they want to amend the state constitution to hold open primary elections, rather than partisan ones, and to require candidates to win a majority of the vote in order to win a general election.

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Montana

Apparent AI Glitch in Filing by Montana Public Defender, Recent Congressional Candidate

Published

3 hours ago

March 2, 2026

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Apparent AI Glitch in Filing by Montana Public Defender, Recent Congressional Candidate

Everyone makes mistakes, even experienced professionals; a good reminder for the rest of us to learn from those mistakes. The motion in State v. Stroup starts off well in its initial pages (no case law hallucinations), but is then followed by several pages of two other motions, which I don’t think the lawyer was planning to file, and which appear to have been AI-generated: It begins with the “Below is concise motion language you can drop into …” language quoted above.

Griffen Smith (Missoulian) reported on the story, and included the prosecutor’s motion to strike that filing, on the grounds that it violates a local rule (3(G)) requiring disclosure of the use of generative AI:

The document does not include a generative artificial intelligence disclosure as required. However, page 7 begins as follows: “Below is concise motion language you can drop into a ‘Motion to Admit Mental-Disease Evidence and for Related Instructions’ keyed to 45-6-204, 45-6-201, and 4614-102. Adjust headings/captions to your local practice.” Page 10 states “Below is a full motion you can paste into your pleading, then adjust names, dates, and styles to fit local practice.” These pages also include several apparent hyperlinks to “ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws,” “ppl-ai-fileupload.s3.amazonaws+1,” and others. The document includes what appears to be an attempt at a second case caption on page 12. It is not plausible on its face that any source other than generative AI would have created such language for a filed version of a brief….

There’s more in that filing, but here’s one passage:

While generative AI can be a useful tool for some purposes and may have greater application in the future, when used improperly, and without meaningful review, it can ultimately damage both the perception and the reality of the profession. One assumes that Mr. Stroup has had, or will at some point have, an opportunity to review the filing made on his behalf. What impression could a review of pgs. 12-19 leave upon a defendant who struggles with paranoia and delusional thinking? While AI could theoretically one day become a replacement for portions of staff of experienced attorneys, it is readily apparent that this day has not yet arrived.

The Missoulan article includes this response:

In a Wednesday interview, Office of Public Defender Division Administrator Brian Smith told the Missoulian the AI-generated language was inadvertently included in an unrelated filing. And he criticized the county attorney’s office for filing a “four-page diatribe about the dangers of AI” instead of working with the defense to correct her mistake.
“That’s not helping the client or the case,” Smith said, “and all you are doing is trying to throw a professional colleague under the bus.”

As I mentioned, the lawyer involved seems quite experienced, and ran for the Montana Public Service Commission in 2020 (getting nearly 48% of the vote) and for the House of Representatives in Montana’s first district in 2022 (getting over 46% of the vote) and in 2024 (getting over 44%). “Его пример другим наука,” Pushkin wrote in Eugene Onegin—”May his example profit others,” in the Falen translation.

Thanks to Matthew Monforton for the pointer.

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Montana

Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV

Published

15 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV

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Montana

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

HELENA — You probably have goals and plans for 2026—the Montana Department of Agriculture does too.

“We’re really focusing on innovative agricultural practices,” Montana Department of Agriculture director Jillien Streit said.

It’s no secret that agriculture—farming and ranching—is not easy. There are long days, planning, monitoring crops and livestock, and other challenges beyond farmers’ and ranchers’ control.

(WATCH: Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026)

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

“We have very low commodity prices across the board,” Streit said. “We still have very high input prices across the board, and we have really high prices when it comes to our equipment, and so, it’s a really tough year.”

But innovation, including new practices, partnerships and technology use, can help navigate some of those challenges.

“We can’t make more time and we can’t make more land, so we need to start putting together innovative practices that help us maximize what our time and land can do,” Streit said.

Practices range from using technology like autonomous tractors and virtual fencing—allowing rangers to contain and move cattle right from their phones—to regenerative farming and ranching.

“It is bringing cattle back into farming operations to be able to work with cover cropping practices to invigorate the soil for new soil health benefits,” Streit said.

The Montana Department of Agriculture is working to help producers learn, share, and collaborate on new ideas to work in their operations.

The department will share stories of practices that work from farms and ranches across the state. Also, within the next year or so, Streit said the department is hoping to roll out technology to help producers collaborate.

“(It’s) providing a communication platform where people can get together and really help each other out by utilizing each other’s assets,” she said.

While not easy, agriculture is still one of Montana’s largest industries, and Streit said innovating and sharing ideas across the state can keep it going long into the future.

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