Even after reminder, voters struggling with new law requiring birth year on ballot envelope

Even as election officials throughout the state reminded residents last month of changes to Montana’s election laws and how ballots should be marked, Montana’s largest county, Yellowstone, said that it is working with nearly 1,000 residents to fix rejected ballots before the school board elections on May 5.

On Monday afternoon, Yellowstone County Elections Administrator Dayna Causby said that 960 ballots had been rejected largely because most failed to include the elector’s birth year, which is now required by state law.

That new requirement caused a higher percentage of Montana ballots to be rejected in 2025, but election officials are worried because there are several different elections in 2026, including primaries in June as well as the general election in November. 

Causby reported:

“The Election Office is reporting a 4.38% rejection rate on returned ballots, with more than 95% of those rejections due to a single issue: Voters did not include their birth year on the signature envelope. The office is contacting all 960 affected voters by mail, and phone/email if available and is urging them to correct their signature envelopes before the deadline.”

House Bill 719 was introduced by Rep. Braxton Mitchell, R-Columbia Falls, as a way to add security measures to the ballots. The law now requires Montana voters to add their birth year. The law went into effect for the 2025 elections, which in Montana, usually are municipal elections. 

During those elections, thousands of ballots statewide were rejected due to voters failing to write in their birth year on envelopes who did not respond to calls, mailed or emailed notices about the errors from their local election departments.

In Yellowstone County, election administrators told the Daily Montanan the rejection rate was nearly 4.5% initially, and after more than 800 ballots were resolved by voters it dropped to 2.03%. However, that was more than double the previous municipal election rate in 2023 of 0.78%.

Reporter Micah Drew contributed to this report.