Montana elections are secure

by Rep. David Bedey, Hamilton

My initial instinct was to ignore Senator Theresa Manzella’s latest screed in the newspaper concerning her quest to waste taxpayer dollars on a special legislative session that would create an unnecessary election integrity tribunal. But in the interest of correcting the record, I offer the following.

Manzella questions my estimate that her project would cost between half-million and a million dollars.  Here are facts that I have confirmed with legislative leaders. The cost of a special session is $110,000 for the first day and $55,000 for each day thereafter. Based on the rules of the legislature, it would be virtually impossible to conclude business in a single day. A minimum of three days is most likely, so the session itself would cost at least $220,000. But to that we must add the cost of the select special committee itself. Manzella’s confederates have floated numbers over the past several months ranging from $250,000 to $500,000, which seems a bit low for a subpoena-wielding committee that supposedly will be searching for election fraud across Montana. Manzella herself has been loudly calling for a “full forensic audit” of the 2020 election. What would that cost? A few years ago Ravalli County spent over $120,000 for a forensic audit of the alleged malfeasance of a former county treasurer. I’ll leave it to you to calculate the cost of a state-wide audit of the election.

She also takes me to task for voting for House Bill 5, which included funding for fish cleaning stations at popular fishing access sites. She forgot to tell you that these stations are being paid for with federal funds—not state tax dollars. House Bill 5 had the effect of allowing the state to expend these federal funds. What she also “forgot” to say was that this bill passed through the Montana House of Representatives and Senate with only two dissenting votes. All six Ravalli County legislators, including Manzella, voted for the bill. If she is so concerned about this spending, why didn’t she oppose the bill when she had the chance?

Finally, I’ll briefly respond to Manzella’s attempt to excommunicate me and others from the conservative cause. First, Democrats across the state will be astonished to learn that I’m a “liberal.” No one who objectively evaluates my record can come to that conclusion, although I do confess to treating my Democrat colleagues (and constituents) with civility. Second, she talks about “true” conservatives. I suppose by this she means those who join her in embracing the teachings of the John Birch Society, a conspiracy-mongering organization that in the 1960s was driven from the conservative movement and the Republican Party. I reject Manzella’s redefinition of conservatism and her attempt to purge principled conservatives from the party of Lincoln and Reagan.

I stand by my analysis of election security in Montana and my conclusion that a special session of the legislature is both unnecessary and unwise. Of course, we should always search for ways to better safeguard our elections. To that end, I am serving without pay on a workgroup that is seeking commonsense improvements to election security that can be passed when the Legislature meets this coming January. I prefer to solve problems, not shout about them.