Cascade County Commissioners met with their interim election administrator during a Jan. 23 special meeting about the upcoming school elections.

GFPS officials said they were unaware of the county meeting about their election until asked about it by The Electric last week.

[Commission appointed Interim Election Administrator Dev Biddick] said that she had looked in Elect Montana, the state voter registration system, and found that about two thirds of actively registered voters requested absentee ballots.

Commissioner Jim Larson said that GFPS is billed for the costs associated with their election and that they had requested a mail ballot election.

Biddick said she wanted to honor voter requests by running the election as both poll and mail.

[Commisioner Joe] Briggs said if they have to mail 67 percent of ballots anyway to voters who opt to vote absentee, then the cost to mail the additional ballots is likely not substantially more.

[District Business Operations Manager Brian Patrick] said that the GFPS board had asked for a mail ballot election as they have for about 16 years.

Electric: County, GFPS discuss May election