Thousands of Local Election Ballots Rejected Over Montana's New Year-of-Birth Requirement

A new requirement that voters write their year of birth on mail-in ballot envelopes resulted in more than 2,700 local-election ballots being rejected this week in Montana’s six largest cities, according to election office data compiled by Montana Free Press.

Another 1,278 ballots were rejected due to issues with ballot-envelope signatures, a longstanding requirement. Many of those votes have since been or will be counted if voters are able to remedy the issues flagged by election workers.

Sarah Bell, Missoula County’s deputy elections administrator, said in an interview that the year-of-birth...