I’ve been voting in Cascade County for years.
The last time I voted at an in-person voting location was in 2000 at North Middle School.
Every voting cycle since then I’ve voted absentee. The Cascade County elections office sends me my ballot through the mail, I vote, and then I drop the ballot off in-person.
During election times in Cascade County I’ve always understood that I had the option to receive an absentee mail ballot or to do in-person voting. I chose the absentee voting option because it’s much more convenient for me and I drop off in-person because sometimes I might not have a whole lot of faith in the postal service.
Lately there seems to be some sort of a kerfuffle going on about how our elections systems/processes are being handled at the local level here in Cascade County.
The “original” headline from The Electric stated, “Ballots Not Mailed On April 17″ — whereas KRTV stated, “Cascade County Elections Department confirms mailing of absentee ballots.”
It’s usually always best to wait and see what actually happens instead of having to worry about changing your headline later because you jumped the gun … also, Jane Weber needs to settle down and eat some fruit or something.
Being since I received my ballot on the 18th, I would tend to error on the side of caution here and give KRTV it’s due accolades on being correct with it’s reporting. As a side note, it’s been years since I’ve seen the postal service here in Great Falls deliver mail cross-town in only a day (they must be improving).
When people start to politicize a process things can get murky in a hurry. This whole “he said she said” crap doesn’t really fly around here. I don’t ever recall “everybody” liking whoever gets elected and this whole elections deal here in Cascade County is no exception … it’s all just the usual politics.
The recent story on KRTV that talked about some folks getting more than one ballot for the same thing is also something that could easily be blown out of proportion. Regular normal mistakes can be made on any day of the week, but when you start to politicize the process, those regular mistakes are made out to be something akin to the sky falling. Chances are good that mistakes can be made when you’ve got a bunch of political near-do-wells breathing down your neck when you’re trying to do your job.
Settle down folks … the sky isn’t falling … this is all just politics as usual. All we have is a bunch of people not liking a bunch of other people here in Cascade County because somebody won or lost an election. That’s it.
When my wife went to University over in western Washington state she was required, by Washington state law, to obtain a Washington drivers license due to the length of time she was there. Fair enough I suppose, but in Washington, you get registered to vote automatically when you get your drivers license.
It’s really a rather interesting story actually, in that my wife never voted in Washington and that upon after returning to Montana she got Washington state election ballots in the mail that covered not one, but two election cycles in that state.
She didn’t immediately jump up and call KRTV or KOMO about it and she didn’t go off on any rants about how the state of Washington was stumping for out of state non-resident votes. When she couldn’t get anywhere with the county elections office over there, she contacted the elections commission in Olympia and so far she hasn’t received any other mailings.
I vote, and sometimes my guy wins, and sometimes my guy loses … it’s a fact of life. If my guy loses, I don’t go all off-the-cuff and get my nose out of joint over it.
At any rate, we work with what we’ve got and for all of the political posers, trolls, and grifters we’ve got out there it’s not an easy job. I’ve found that it’s always best to not jump to any conclusions because somebody else might be having a political angst over something.
I received my ballot in a timely manor, just like “always”, so I’ll resign myself to voting for who I think might be best suited to doing the job.
sourced: The Electric (original reference link – https://theelectricgf.com/2023/04/17/ballots-not-mailed-on-april-17-county-staff-volunteers-spent-week-stuffing-envelopes/)
Thanks for the read.
Happy Trails
