Independent Seth Bodnar says he has the signatures needed to be on the general election ballot in Montana

HELENA, MT- Today is major election deadline for independent candidates. Today is the deadline signatures to petition to be on the ballot are due.

In short, if the signatures aren’t turned in and in good standing the road to be on the ballot is essentially over.

Candidate for U.S. Senate Seth Bodnar says that his campaign successfully gathered nearly 30,000 signatures to qualify him for the November ballot; more than twice the required threshold of 13,327.

All signatures will be submitted to county offices by 5pm MT.

Now how did we get that number of needed signatures? It's based off the last election.

Title 13 the Montana Code reads the (an independent candidate) must have the signatures  equal to 5% or more of the total votes cast for the successful candidate in the last general election.

That number is 13,327.

The Secretary of State’s Office of the State of Montana said today Bodnar has so for  11,000 have been considered as eligible signatures with 3,988 rejected.

Via press release the campaign says the volunteer-driven petition effort collected signatures in 52 of 56 of Montana’s counties.

"Tens of thousands of Montanans from every corner of our state have spoken: they are sick of the broken politics of Washington and are ready for an Independent on the ballot in November,” said Bodnar. “While DC Insiders tried to rig this election in March by installing a handpicked candidate who will do their bidding, our campaign has spent months building a political movement of Montanans who want the chance to send leaders to Washington who will always put Montana First. I will never pay allegiance to Party bosses or political elites, and I will work every day until Election Day to earn the vote of every Montanan.”

We will update this story as signatures are updated.