A new law passed in the 2025 Montana legislative session required voters to add their birth year to their ballots for the November 2025 municipal elections.

While the Montana Secretary of State touted “only one percent” of ballots rejected due to missing or mismatched birth year, the individual county statistics show a different story , adding extra costs and labor to counties across the state as they worked to resolve the rejected ballots.

“663 rejected ballots is definitely an uptick,” said Flathead County Election Administrator Debbie Pierson, pointing out that the voters of Flathead County reduced the number of rejected ballots due to signature mismatch by 50% when compared to the school district election that took place earlier this year.

“The city council election only had 1

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