Harris Temporarily Left Off Montana's Electronic Ballot

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Facts

  • Voters attempting to use Montana's' Electronic Absentee System to cast their ballot from overseas on Friday found that the name of VP Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, was missing. The system was then temporarily taken offline.[1]
  • The Montana Secretary of State's office said the error was isolated to the online system and only a small number of voters may have been impacted. The system was reportedly back online by Friday afternoon.[1][2]
  • Montana's Electronic Absentee System (EAS) allows eligible military and overseas citizens to cast their votes up to 45 days before the Nov. 5 election.[3]
  • RealClearPolitics's polling average places former Pres. Donald Trump (56.3%) 17.6 points ahead of Vice Pres. Kamala Harris (38.7%) in Montana, while Republican Senate candidate Tim Sheehy (50.0%) is projected to lead Democratic incumbent Jon Tester (44.8%) by 5.2 points.[4][5]
  • Tester has held the seat since 2007, but Sheehy has the endorsement of former Pres. Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee who won the state by 16 points in 2020.[6]

Sources: [1]Bozeman Daily Chronicle, [2]Newsweek, [3]Sosmt, [4]RealClearPolling (a), [5]RealClearPolling (b) and [6]Daily Mail.

Narratives

  • Democratic narrative, as provided by The Hill. Although it doesn't appear anything nefarious took place with the online voting system, after Montana's Secretary of State was sued in order to repeal a series of voting reform laws that the courts ruled interfere with 'fundamental' voting rights, it's understandable that Democrats are suspicious and desire to scrutinize this incident.
  • Republican narrative, as provided by FOX News. There are bigger issues in the Montana election than a brief glitch with the online ballots. It seems Tester-aligned groups are bribing college athletes to record videos in support of the senator. Democrats may want to snuff out shady business originating on their own side before throwing out accusations of anti-Harris activity.