Montana Judge Just Struck Down This New Ballot Rule

Montana's Absentee Ballot Birth Year Rule Has Been Struck Down

Montana has been voting by mail for quite some time now, but a Montana judge just struck down a new rule that required voters to write their birth year on absentee ballot envelopes.

In 2025, the Montana Legislature added the birth year requirement as an extra security measure, hoping it would help prevent voter fraud.

Thousands of Montana Ballots Were Rejected Over Birth Years

What happened instead was thousands of Montana ballots were rejected because voters either left their birth year off the envelope or entered it incorrectly.

Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Mike Menahan ruled Monday that the law was unconstitutional.

According to Montana Free Press, nearly 6,000 Montana voters have been affected by the requirement since it went into effect.

In the 2025 Billings mayoral election, there were 627 ballots rejected because they were missing a birth year. In a race that was decided by just 200 votes, that's a pretty big deal.

The lawsuit was brought by Disability Rights Montana and Big Sky 55+, which argued the rule created an unnecessary barrier for voters.

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What The Ruling Means For Montana's 2026 Election

Judge Menahan said the state wasn't able to provide enough evidence showing that requiring a birth year would actually help prevent fraud or justify the burden it put on voters.

And with the midterm election less than a month away, the timing of this ruling is pretty important.

Current reporting says the 2026 ballots have already gone to printers, overseas ballots have already been sent, and regular absentee ballots are scheduled to be mailed October 9, with Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen's office saying reprinting them would take weeks.

But under Monday's ruling, a ballot can't be rejected just because the envelope doesn't include the voter's birth year.

And really, we've been voting by mail in Montana for a long time without this requirement. It does make you wonder what this new rule was really accomplishing in the first place.