On April 12, the Montana House passed SB 350 by a vote of 67-33. It makes three improvements in the process for a new or previously unqualified party to petition onto the ballot. (1) a signature is valid even if the signer omits a middle initial that is shown on that signer’s voter registration form, or vice versa; (2) signers can’t remove their signatures from the petition after the petition deadline has passed; (3) the person who submits the party petition need not prove that he or she is associated with the party that petitioned.

All Republicans in the House voted “yes”; all Democrats voted “no.” This bill exists because state court judges appointed by Democratic Governors removed the Green Party from the ballot in both 2018 and 2020.

The Montana procedure for a new party still has serious flaws. It requires a number of signatures from each of 33 state house districts, but the number is far from equal for each district. Some districts only need 55 signatures; others need as many as 150. Because the house districts are roughly equal in population, this characteristic of the law violates Equal Protection and the U.S. Supreme Court decision Moore v Ogilvie. Also the March petition deadline is far too early. The Green Party is currently fighting the unequal distribution requirement in the Ninth Circuit. The early deadline is not really part of the lawsuit, because in both 2018 and 2020 the deadline did not prevent the petition from being submitted. The case in the Ninth Circuit is Montana Green Party v Stapleton, 20-35340. The oral argument is May 6 in Portland, Oregon.