Lawmaker continues to press Missoula County election allegations

Four months have passed since allegations of voting irregularities in Missoula County’s 2020 election made their way to the floor of the Montana House. But according to documents produced in response to a public records request by Montana Free Press, Rep. Brad Tschida, R-Missoula, is continuing to press Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen to conduct a full investigation of what he claims was a “debacle” of an election last fall. Those same records indicate Jacobsen has not engaged with Tschida on the issue.

“I will not relent on my mission to clear up these suspicious actions in Missoula until I either hear that some action is to be taken by the SOS office or that a refusal to take action is offered,” Tschida wrote in a June 25 email to Jacobsen.

MTFP filed a public records request with Jacobsen’s office on April 22 asking for any and all electronic exchanges between Jacobsen, her staff and a group of Missoula Republicans headed by Tschida who have spurred debate over the county’s 2020 election results. Those records were delivered July 20 and reveal that Tschida has not given up his “mission” in the months since the Legislature ended. He emailed Jacobsen and her staff several times throughout June and July asking for information about county authority to conduct elections by mail and reiterating his demand that Jacobsen acknowledge the validity of his claims.

“Your lack of comment on this matter, not only to me but to the countless persons with whom I’ve discussed this, is a resounding position of indifference on your part to this situation, in terms of making the next right and proper decision,” he wrote in a July 6 email.

Read more: https://montanafreepress.org/2021/07/20/tschida-presses-missoula-election-allegations/