In Montana, attacks on voting risk disenfranchising people with disabilities

When Montana passed a law last year that would reject mail-in ballots over minor date errors, voting rights groups swiftly sued*.

The measure, House Bill 719, requires voters — including those with disabilities affecting mobility — to manually write their date of birth on absentee ballot applications and ballot envelopes in order for their vote to be counted. That could disenfranchise many voters in a state where 80% of people voted by mail in 2024, the voting rights groups argued.

“By adding a new complication to a system that is already working, lawmakers will make Montana elections less robust and less representative, because it will lead to the exclusion of qualified voters’ ballots,” they said in their May 2025 legal complaint.

HB 719’s effects have already been felt. In local elections last November, nearly 3,000 ballots were rejected across Montana’s six largest cities, according to data from the Montana Free Press.



https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/in-montana-attacks-on-voting-risk-disenfranchising-people-with-disabilities/