HELENA — This year, Montana voters will consider whether to approve a pair of ballot measures that would make the biggest changes in decades to how the state elects its leaders.
Supporters of Constitutional Initiatives 126 and 127 say they’ll put power back in the hands of voters.
“It's not special interests, it's not parties – it's about people,” said Frank Garner, a board member for Montanans for Election Reform, the group backing the initiatives. “This incentivizes behavior in our elected representatives that requires them to build coalitions, to govern more broadly.”
Currently, Montana primary voters get multiple ballots, one for each party. They choose any one they want, and vote for only candidates in that party’s primary. The top vote-getter from each party moves on to the general election.
If CI-126 passes, all candidates will appear on the same primary ballot, with their preferred political party or “no party preference” listed. Voters will choose one candidate for each office, and the top four finishers, regardless of party, will move on to the general election.
Garner says the primary is a “chokepoint” in the current election system that encourages polarization and divisiveness.
“We are functionally electing the majority of our representatives in primaries – the vast majority – so our participation in primaries is paramount,” he said. “What this does is allow you now finally to choose between anybody who's eligible in the primary – and you can't do that now.”
CI-127 would change the rules for the general election. Instead of just the candidate with the most votes winning, it would require a candidate get a majority – at least 50% of the vote – to win. The Legislature will have to pass a law to set up the rules for what happens if no candidate gets a majority; Garner said he sees runoff elections or a ranked-choice system as the two realistic possibilities.
“That charge goes to the Legislature – again, it's because we think that public process is necessary for us to make a good decision for Montana about how to decide the majority-winner issue,” he said.
CI-126 and CI-127 would apply to elections for U.S. Senate and House, governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor, superintendent of public instruction and state Legislature, starting in 2026. The Legislature could pass a law to expand the changes to other elections.
On Monday, Garner debated the merits of the two measures at a League of Women Voters event in Helena. Arguing against them was another former GOP lawmaker, Matthew Monforton of Bozeman.
Monforton says, for better or worse, many voters make their decision based on a candidate’s party affiliation. He doesn’t like the fact that, under CI-126, there could be multiple candidates from a single party in the general election and the ballot wouldn’t show which one is preferred or endorsed by that party.
“There will be no way for any political party, whether it's a major party or a minor party, to be able to rebut that and communicate with the voters through the ballot and say, ‘No, this person really doesn't represent us,’” he said.
Monforton argued, while many voters have a negative view on parties, that they have historically played an important role in vetting candidates.
“There’s a huge gap of information; somebody’s going to fill that gap if it isn’t the political parties, and that somebody is going to be special interests, wealthy candidates, candidates who are incumbents – they’re going to have a significant advantage in this system,” he said.
The only state that currently has a top-four primary system is Alaska, which also uses ranked-choice voting in its general elections. The state adopted the system as the result of a voter-approved ballot measure in 2020 – though voters will consider a measure this year that would repeal it.
Other states have similar systems. In California and Washington, all candidates are on the same primary ballot but only two advance to the general election. Garner said MER decided on top-four because top-two would be easier to “game.” For example, in a top-two primary, there’s a greater chance all the candidates in the general election will be from one party.
“I think we've been able to benefit from the observations from other systems in other states and local governments, who have similar processes in place,” said Garner.
Paul Pope, a political science professor at Montana State University Billings, says every state has its own political culture, and there are still many unknowns about what impact CI-126 and 127 could have on Montana. However, he said there is reason to think changing the primary system could change the incentives for politicians.
“The most die-hard Republicans, the most die-hard Democrats who tend to be out on the wings of the party, they're more likely to vote in the primary than what we see in the general election,” he said. “If there's a little mixing of who can vote for whom, I think we are going to end up with probably less extreme candidates.”
The Montana Republican Party’s state leadership has come out strongly against CI-126, calling it a “back door” to ranked-choice voting.
“This initiative would be destructive to our elections process, cause confusion, and disenfranchise Montana voters,” said state party chair “Don K” Kaltschmidt in an April statement.
When MTN asked the Montana Democratic Party about CI-126 and 127, they said in a statement, “The Party supports the rights of Montanans to make their voices heard at the ballot box.”
Sid Daoud, chair of the Montana Libertarian Party, told MTN he isn’t against the ideas behind these measures, but he’s opposing them this time because he’s concerned how they might impact his party’s ballot access. The Libertarians have maintained an automatic spot on Montana ballots for decades by receiving enough votes to clear the state’s threshold for ballot access.
There are five other states where voters are considering ballot measures to create top-two, four or five primaries this year: Idaho, South Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona. Several of those measures would also implement ranked-choice voting, and Oregon will be voting separately on ranked-choice.
Two organizations – Article IV and Unite America PAC – have contributed large amounts of money to the campaign for CI-126 and 127 as well as election reform measures in other states. MER has reported receiving more than $4 million from Article IV and more than $2 million from Unite America PAC.
While opponents have criticized the amount of out-of-state money MER has brought in, Garner defended that financial support.
“For us to be able to talk to Montanans, we know we're going to have to have resources, and we're glad to partner with groups that share our vision of being able to put Montanans back in charge of their election system,” he said. “So we're going to use those resources to make sure we talk to Montanans to educate them – and that we work on a level playing field with the other groups out there in the world that hope we’ll work at a disadvantage.”
