Both Montana bills that restrict ballot access have been amended. SB 566, which originally imposed a top-two system just for U.S. Senate in 2024, now applies to all statewide partisan offices except president. If the bill were enacted, there would be no means for a party to remain ballot-qualified unless it polled a large share of the vote for president. The percentage of the vote for president needed depends on what happens to the other bill, SB 565.

SB 565, the bill to raise petition requirements for minor parties, independent candidates, and independent presidential candidates, and to increase the vote test, has been amended so it is not quite so severe. The original bill raised all petitions to 5% of the number of registered voters, approximately 38,000. With the amendments, the party petition and the independent presidential petition rise from 5,000 signatures to 15,000 signatures. The petition for non-presidential independents rises from 5% of the vote cast for the winning candidate for that office to 5% of the total vote cast for that office.

Another amendment to SB 565 makes the vote test worse than the existing law, but not as bad as the original bill. The existing law requires a vote for a statewide office of 5% of the winning gubernatorial’s vote total. The original bill raised that to 5% of the number of registered voters. The amendment lowers that to 5% of the total vote cast in the last election. The amendment no longer removes the Libertarian Party from the ballot. In 2020 the Libertarian Party polled 31,267 votes for Auditor, and the new vote test under the amendment would be 30,604 votes.

The amendments retain more severe distribution requirements for the party petition. Existing law requires the lesser of 150 signatures, or 5% of the gubernatorial winner’s vote, in each of 34 state house districts. The amendments raise the 150 signature cap to 250. The amendments say the requirement within each state house district is the lesser of 250 or 5% of the total gubernatorial vote in that district. This amendment suffers from the same defect that caused the original distribution requirement to be declared unconstitutional last year in the Green Party’s winning case.

If SB 565 passes as amended, Montana would easily have the nation’s highest presidential petition requirement in the nation, when the states are compared using the easier method available for presidential candidates. All other states are at or below 2% of the last vote cast, for president, but Montana’s 15,000 would be 2.5% of the 2020 presidential vote. The bills would take effect January 1, 2024, so if the bills pass, the current easier law would be in effect for the remainder of this year.