Why Montana Election Officials Still Want Your Birthdate

Voting is already well underway for the November General election, with Montana election officials advising voters to go ahead and include their birthdate information, even though a recent court decision overturned that requirement.

The ruling overturning the requirement to include your birthdate, along with your signature, on the security envelopes for mail-in voting came as county election officers were preparing to send ballots.

Missoula County Elections Administrator Bradley Seaman says that ruling, and several other court challenges, aren't changing how people vote this year.

The date boxes are still there

"Well, so as we went through preparing those ballots and getting those out, there were a lot of different executive orders, court discussions," Seaman explains. "And it was nice to see that for voters, it's a decision in the positive. You're going to vote the same way you're used to."

Seaman says the advice from the Secretary of State's Office is for voters to go ahead and include those dates "just in case" that decision is changed again.

"So right now, you're not required to put your year of birth, but we're going with a better safe than sorry approach. It's on the envelope. If you write it, it won't exclude it.

We're not checking it, but if the law changes again, then you'll be covered. And any voter who has a rejected ballot is always contacted by our office."

Expect less ballots to be rejected

As many as 6,500 ballots were rejected statewide after the date requirement was added.