City council nixes mail-in ballot for November

Voters likely will cast ballots in person during November’s municipal election after Libby City Council rejected a proposal for a mail-in election this week.

Resolution No. 1987 would have allowed county election officials to send out ballots 15 to 20 days before the Nov. 2 local election. The proposal came at the request of Paula Buff, election administrator for Lincoln County, who will oversee the municipal election.

City councilors, several of whom will appear on the ballot this fall, ultimately nixed the proposal in a 4-1 vote on Aug. 2. The spirited debate preceding the vote focused on the efficacy of the two different models — especially given the pandemic — and whether further use of mail-in elections might erode institutions of democracy locally.

“Precinct voting is better,” said City Councilor Hugh Taylor. “It is our constitutional responsibility to show up and vote.”

City Councilor Gary Beach wondered whether the present national upswing in coronavirus cases, largely driven by the delta variant of the virus, might affect voting in November. What happens if lockdowns go into place again, he asked.

“Let’s say something drastic happens and we get to the point of being locked down again,” he said. “It’s going to be way more expensive to revamp and go backwards than to go with a mail-in election.”

City Councilor Rob Dufficy rejected the notion, arguing that the coronavirus, even at the height of the pandemic, failed to prevent residents from going about their business.

“COVID-19 has been used as an excuse for everything,” he said. “People get sick standing in line, well, they were never stopped from going to Rosauers or Walmart or anywhere else.”

Beach, who joined Dufficy, Taylor and Zimmerman in voting against the proposal, replied that fear of the pandemic wasn’t the point. After the vote, Beach said he wanted city councilors to look at the question from all angles and consider factors beyond their control.

City Councilor Brian Zimmerman, though, worried the coronavirus might deter voters from casting ballots.

“I would rather it be a precinct ballot, but … I do worry about the number of people not voting who would usually vote, because they’re worried about coming here,” he said.

The sharpest exchange of the evening came at the top of the discussion, when Dufficy cited fraud as a reason for going with in-person voting.

“Voting is a pretty solemn duty for American citizens,” he said. “More and more we get away with this mail-in [election]. The 2020 election was fraught with fraud.”

“Point of order: There was no evidence of any fraud,” interjected City Councilor Kristin Smith, who cast the sole vote in favor of a mail-in election.

Evidence of widespread voter fraud across the country during the 2020 election remains lacking despite repeated claims to the contrary. As early as Nov. 12, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency deemed it “the most secure in American history.” Election officials on the local and state level, judges and members of former President Donald Trump’s administration have rejected claims of fraud.

Individual allegations and investigations have cropped up around the country. In Arizona, 182 cases were referred to investigators for further review — out of more than 3 million ballots cast, according to the Associated Press.

In Wisconsin, 27 cases of potential voter fraud were reported out of about 3.3 million ballots, the Associated Press reported.

And in Michigan, where it was claimed hundreds of thousands of ballots were cast fraudulently, a GOP-controlled state Senate committee found no evidence of widespread fraud in a report issued in late June, according to The Detroit News.

In Lincoln County, Buff said there were no lawsuits filed alleging voter fraud from the 2020 election and no Freedom of Information Act requests. Buff said she advised that Libby go with a mail-in election to save on costs and because more than half the local electorate votes by absentee ballot anyway.

“The City of Libby has a pretty high absentee voter rate — it’s 62 percent absentee — and given the fact that over half of the population chooses to vote by mail, it just makes sense to run a mail-in election,” she said. “That was my recommendation to the city council by letter.”

Eureka and Troy, both of which will hold municipal elections this fall, will conduct mail-in voting, she said. While county staff will provide the logistics behind the election, the city will reimburse the cost.

“You still have the cost involved with sending out absentee ballots in addition to manning polls — poll watchers, judges, tabulators — all of those costs associated with a poll election,” Buff said.

At the Aug. 2 meeting, Mayor Pro Tempore Peggy Williams said the cost of a mail-in election would amount to $3,000. The city council did not have figures for the cost of a poll election. It was not immediately clear if city councilors would have to pass a resolution confirming their choice of a poll election at a future meeting.

Smith cited the cost of a poll election as one reason for her preference for mail-in voting this year.

"In the interest of fiscal responsibility and administrative feasibility and to encourage everybody to vote at their convenience, that is why I’m making the motion to adopt this resolution," she said.

Williams said that Libby had held both mail-in and poll municipal elections in recent years. Mail-in ballots were adopted in 2009 and 2011, she said, with poll elections held in 2013 and 2015. She was unsure how the 2017 election was conducted, but sample ballots published in The Western News at the time indicate that it was a mail-in election. City councilors were appointed in 2019 owing to a lack of candidates.

Beach, Dufficy and Smith are all on the ballot seeking reelection this year, vying against residents Melissa Berke, Zachariah McNew and Darrel “DC” Orr. Former Mayor Brent Teske also filed to run, but recently was appointed county commissioner for Libby.

Williams and Taylor are both in the running for the position of mayor as well as resident Kenny Rayome Jr.