The Return Of The Zombie Bill

By Darrell Ehrlick, Daily Montanan

February 11, 2021

Of all the things that are broken in government, voting, despite what some have said, doesn’t need fixing.

Praising, maybe. But definitely not fixing.

Yet in Montana, it appears that the “zombie bill” – House Bill 176 – which was dead and then brought back to life because of pressure from Republican Party leaders and Gov. Greg Gianforte — is living and even thriving.

Among Montana’s solutions in search of a problem, HB 176 is pernicious. It’s a dangerous bill because we know what the problem isn’t. That means the solution can only break what is already working.

Bill sponsor Rep. Sharon Greef, R-Florence, told lawmakers that she wouldn’t do anything to impede someone from exercising that most basic of rights and then proceeded to push the legislation even as she was offered proof that it would do just that — disenfranchise voters.

The facts and statistics couldn’t be more stark: Since the start of same-day voter registration, not a single case of substantiated voter fraud as hundreds of thousands of Montanans have exercised their constitutionally protected right. The same-day registration was overwhelmingly approved by Montanans in 2014 by 57 percent, clearly showing that Treasure State residents support the measure regardless of party affiliation. Finally, nearly 4,000 Montanans used same-day registration to vote in 2020.

Cut off or change same-day voter registration and you’ll disenfranchise 4,000 state residents. That is more than the population of 17 Montana counties.

At the same committee hearing, Rep. Marvin Weatherwax, D-Browning, told of how members of tribal nations can’t usually get to remote voting locations but once, usually during Election Day. Stop same-day voter registration, and you’ll all of a sudden disenfranchise Native groups which have been among the most discriminated in our state’s less-than-sterling history.

Proponents of the bill argue that county election workers need to stay focused on the election itself, not mess around with these tardy voters. However, what is important to an election than honest-to-God voters? You can’t have an election without voters. It’s funny for a group of lawmakers so often suspicious of government employees and bureaucrats that now, in this one instance, they’re worried about workload.

As Rep. Kelly Kortum, D-Bozeman, told the committee: It’s not only wrong, but dangerous to disallow same-day voter registration. Can you imagine 4,000 people showing up, standing in line, believing they were doing the right thing, only to be told they can’t vote?

I fear for the volunteer officials who have to deliver that piece of news, especially since it seems everybody can now carry a gun wherever, thanks to this same group of politicians.

Instead, Republicans argue that if folks can get a haircut or schedule a doctor’s appointment, they can also make time to go down to the county office and sign up to vote.

Getting a haircut isn’t a constitutionally protected activity. Voting is.

Scheduling a doctor’s appointment is how you see a doctor, just like registering to vote is how you see a ballot.

This mother-knows-best way of tsk-tsking voters who show up to register on the same day rings hollow for me. Many of the lawmakers supporting nixing same-day registration are the same ones who kneel before the altar of personal responsibility as they refuse to exercise even a small measure of personal agency by masking up while meeting at the Legislature.

Spare me lectures about personal responsibility.

Because lawmakers have presented no evidence that there’s a problem, sufficient evidence that same-day registration is popular among voters, and that it’s actually being used to the tune of 4,000 times an election, we can only be left with one conclusion: The effort to end same-day voter registration in Montana is an obvious ploy to take away rights guaranteed by the same Constitution so many of them swear to uphold.

You have wonder why people showing up to vote is such a threat. People standing in line — sometimes for hours, sometimes braving weather — tells me so much more about a person’s love of country than any flag pin on a jacket lapel.

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