https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/03/24/a_river_of_doubt_runs_through_mail_voting_in_big_sky_country_769321.html
MISSOULA COUNTY, Mont.—A mountainous, 2,600-square-mile region with a population of approximately 119,600 does not seem like your prototypical setting for machine politics. Yet a recent audit of mail-in ballots cast there found irregularities characteristic of larger urban centers—on a level that could have easily swung local elections in 2020, and statewide elections in cycles past.
The Biden administration, the Democrat-controlled Congress, and the Democratic National Committee are collectively pressing to both nationalize, and make permanent, many of the extraordinary pandemic-driven voting measures implemented during the 2020 election—particularly mass mail-in voting.
Political leaders and prominent media outlets have dismissed concerns raised by critics that such measures invite voter fraud. But could the election in small-county Missoula call all that into question?
The story at hand begins during the pandemic summer of 2020, when the then-governor, Democrat Steve Bullock, issued a directive permitting counties to conduct the general election fully by mail. In the run-up to the election, a court also struck down Montana’s law aimed at preventing ballot harvesting.
Missoula, Montana’s second most populous county and one of its most heavily Democratic, opted in to the universal vote-by-mail regime.
In response, in October 2020, several county residents with experience targeting election integrity issues formed a group to ensure the legitimacy of the 2020 vote. The members contended that Missoula County had shown anomalies in elections past.
In November, the group approached state Rep. Brad Tschida, a Republican, to formally take up the issue. Tschida hired a lawyer involved in the group, Quentin Rhoades, to represent him in corresponding with Missoula County Elections Administrator Bradley Seaman, a Democratic appointee and a longtime supporter of progressive causes.
Seaman’s office complied with Tschida’s request for access to all of the county’s ballot envelopes, and on Jan. 4 a team of volunteers, overseen by Rhoades, conducted an audit with the assistance of the Missoula County Elections Office. The audit consisted of both a count and review of all ballot envelopes and comparing that to the number of officially recorded votes during the Nov. 3, 2020, general election.