Election Reform in the Last Best Place? Voting Day 2024 in Kalispell, Montana

“You want to know why we’re polarized? You want to know why we have division?” Our featured guest Frank Garner posed this question to voters at the constitutional ballot initiative debate we attended in Helena, Montana and many similar events. “We have a system that allows for it and the pressure that is put on people… to vote a certain way.”

A Republican member of the Montana House from 2015 to 2023, Garner spent over a year as the primary spokesperson for Montanans for Election Reform, the group that gathered 200 thousand signatures and fought off four lawsuits to place two Constitutional Initiatives (CI) on the 2024 ballot. 

CI 126 proposed replacing the current primary system where voters receive a ballot from each party (then choose one to complete) with a single, unified primary ballot of all candidates from which the top 4 advance to a general election. While CI 127 would require a majority winner from those 4 candidates. 

In this episode we also hear from Kendra Miller, Strategic Advisor to Montanans for Election Reform, on the critical need for competitive elections in “the last best place.” 

“I think one of the more shocking stats,” says Miller, a data analyst with extensive campaign experience, “is that in 2022…only 6% of Montana voters effectively elected 88% of the Montana House.” 

We then visit with former legislator Frank Garner on election night and into the next day as the results slowly come on the initiatives he’s championed throughout this vast state. 

Tune in for the final results and also reflections on the challenge of election reform messaging in a state saturated with ads from the most expensive US Senate race per capita in the country. 

The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production; original music by Ryan Adair Rooney