Montana Supreme Court Says No to Election Day Voter Registration – Flathead Beacon

Below an order issued Tuesday by the Montana Supreme Court docket, Election Day voter registration will as soon as once more be prohibited within the state. The order overturned a district court docket injunction from March that blocked parts of 4 new election administration legal guidelines affecting voter identification necessities, poll assortment and voter registration.

Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen had requested a keep from the state’s excessive court docket earlier this spring as a part of an ongoing lawsuit involving the 4 legal guidelines handed by Republican legislators in 2021. The plaintiffs in that case embrace the Montana Democratic Occasion, Western Native Voice, Montana Youth Motion and a coalition of different Indigenous and voting rights teams, all of which have challenged the legal guidelines as unconstitutionally burdensome to voters. Jacobsen, a Republican, is the defendant, and was an outspoken supporter of the legal guidelines through the 2021 session.

“I’m grateful that the Supreme Court docket acknowledged the significance of orderly, protected, and safe elections,” Jacobsen mentioned Tuesday in an e-mail assertion responding to the court docket’s motion.

In response to a request for remark Tuesday, Montana Democratic Occasion Govt Director Sheila Hogan issued a press release as effectively: “We strongly encourage Montanans to register and vote early for this main election.”

The Supreme Court docket’s keep is the most recent in a sequence of abrupt modifications to Montana election regulation arising from the lawsuit. The sooner injunction, issued by Yellowstone County District Court docket Decide Michael Moses on March 6, reactivated Election Day voter registration in time for the Might college board election season. Now the Supreme Court docket’s order — signed by justices Beth Baker, Dirk Sandefur, Jim Rice and Jim Shea — would require potential voters within the upcoming 2022 main to register earlier than midday the day earlier than Election Day, as established in Home Invoice 176. Voters casting their ballots on the polls may also now be required to stick to new voter identification necessities specified by Senate Invoice 169.

In granting Jacobsen’s request, the court docket acknowledged that Montanans will expertise a level of voter confusion and disruption of the election course of whether or not the brand new legal guidelines remained blocked or not. Nevertheless, the supporting justices wrote that, based mostly on the findings of a earlier lawsuit involving Montana election regulation, the established order could be to return to the legal guidelines that have been in impact through the 2021 municipal elections — in different phrases, the legal guidelines handed by the 2021 Montana Legislature. 

“We place higher weight on the truth that elections have truly been carried out beneath the statutes as enacted by SB 169 and HB 176 — elections that a big portion of Montana voters participated in,” the order learn. “Staying a preliminary injunction, which was not in impact through the 2021 elections, implies that voters will proceed to function beneath the legal guidelines which were in impact for over a 12 months at this level.”

This story initially appeared within the Montana Free Press, which might be discovered on-line at montanafreepress.org.