With the primary election upon us on Tuesday, June 4th, we talked with Terry Thompson, the Cascade County elections administrator, to see how she and her staff are preparing and what voters can do to ensure their ballots are counted.
“Late registration ends at noon on June 3rd, then, new registration starts over the morning of election day. At 7 am [Tuesday] morning, new registrants can come to either the election office, or they can come to Exhibition Hall to register and get a ballot,” said Thompson.
For absentee voters who did not receive their ballots, the election office is able to look it up for you in person at their office or in Exhibition Hall. Reasons for not receiving an absentee ballot would be an invalid address, the ballot was deemed undeliverable, or you aren’t actually an absentee voter. They will be able to look this up for you.
“The election office, the Courthouse Annex, will be open at 7 am and they can drop their ballots there. There are two boxes at the Courthouse Annex, one in the election office and one at the Second Avenue North door, so you can drop there,” Thompson said. “We will actually have two locations here at Exhibition Hall: we’ll have inside the facility, and then the drive up will be outside, so people can just drive by and drop their ballot in a box out there too.”
Voting opens at 7am and the cut off for being in line to vote is 8pm. Anyone who is in line before 8 will be able to get their vote in; however, after that point the ballots will be officially closed.
The elections office, along with their team of volunteers, began counting ballots on Monday at 10am and stopped at 5pm. They will continue beginning at 8am on Tuesday morning and will go until the count is completed.
Thompson added, “It's a good idea just to give us a call or go to the election office and ask what the status of your ballot is.”
If you have any questions or concerns, reach out to the elections office (Second Avenue North) or go in person to the polling place in Exhibition Hall at Montana ExpoPark (400 Third Street NW).
