Kamala Harris is on Montana ballots, despite temporary overseas glitch

"If a state left Trump off of the ballot, do you think the media would respond with a shrug of the shoulders? The Montana Secretary of State left Kamala Harris off the ballot," says a September 22, 2024 X post calling for Republican Christi Jacobsen, who holds the office, to be "jailed."

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Screenshot from X taken September 24, 2024

Liberal advocacy group Occupy Democrats copied the message in an image posted on Instagram. Numerous users shared it across the platform and other sites, such as Threads.

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Screenshot from Instagram taken September 24, 2024

Similar posts further accuse Jacobsen of "election interference" or trying to "steal" the November 5 contest.

But the claims are misleading.

While some overseas voters did open up electronic ballots that were missing Harris, the temporary glitch only affected some residents living abroad -- not all Montanans. The secretary of state's office said in a September 23 news release that the error was quickly resolved and that "no ballots were affected" (archived here).

The office added in a September 24 email that "all certified candidates for Montana's 2024 General Election appear on the ballot."

Technical error prompted shutdown

The error in question affected voters covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), a federal law that allows military members and other Americans living abroad to register and vote absentee in elections.

In Montana, residents covered under the act can mark their ballots as early as 45 days before Election Day using a hub called the Electronic Absentee System (EAS).

But when the system opened to voters the morning of September 20, Max Himsl and his wife noticed something astray: Harris's name was not listed as an option. 

Himsl, from Montana's Flathead County, has been working and living in the United Kingdom as a plumber. 

He told AFP in a September 24 LinkedIn message that he and his wife flagged the issue to the county's elections department, which had emailed the link granting them access to the EAS. They also notified Jacobsen's office.

He said the county told him others had also called confused, with some wondering if they had to enter Harris as a write-in candidate. Local media reported that other counties also fielded calls about the bug.

Paula Buff, Flathead County's election advisor, said in a September 24 statement that her office forwarded the concern to the secretary of state "immediately."

The secretary of state's office told AFP: "Shortly after the system went live Friday at 8 am, Flathead County emailed the secretary of state's office that a UOCAVA voter had notified them that candidates were not displaying properly on the EAS system. After receiving that email, the Secretary of State's Office took the system offline for troubleshooting with the vendor."

The office said the platform was restored that afternoon.

"One potentially impacted voter submitted a ballot before the system was taken offline during the troubleshooting period. That voter was contacted and addressed."

The office said 19 other voters in Flathead County might have accessed the system before it was pulled offline, but that none of them had submitted their votes.

Himsl, one of those 19, said the issue was corrected by the end of the day.

"Kamala Harris and Tim Walz did eventually make it onto the ballot after they fixed whatever error they had," he said.

However, he said the state downplayed the incident by saying in its September 23 statement that the issue may have affected "few voters."

"Every person utilizing Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting would have got the same ballot," he said. "Had I not called both Flathead County and the state, the issue may have went undetected for a longer period."

Other ballots unaffected

The mistake was limited to the EAS, Jacobsen's office said. The state is mailing ballots for other absentee voters on October 11, and in-person polls open on Election Day.

Harris will be named on all the printed ballots -- including those in Flathead County, Buff said. Sample ballots for other counties, including the three most populous jurisdictions of Yellowstone, Gallatin and Missoula, list the vice president among the candidates (archived here, here and here).

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Screenshot from a sample Yellowstone County, Montana ballot taken September 25, 2024

"Any problems with the UOCAVA electronic system would not affect paper ballots, which are printed and prepared separately," said KV Aldrich, the Yellowstone County elections administrator, in a September 24 email.

"Yellowstone County’s ballots for in-person and absentee voting contain the names of all candidates certified by the secretary of state for the ballot, including Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz."

Aldrich told AFP she is unaware of any overseas Yellowstone County voters affected by the glitch.

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the 2024 election here.