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HELENA, Mont. — Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen announced on Tuesday that the state’s post-election audit process is officially underway.
The Montana State Board of Canvassers—representatives from the Attorney General’s Office, Office of Public Instruction, and State Auditor’s Office—convened at the State Capitol on Tuesday to randomly select the races and precincts to be audited for Montana’s 2026 Primary Election post-election audit. Participants took turns rolling multiple 10-sided dice to determine the selections.
Montana’s Post-Election Audit Act requires manually hand counting the votes of the selected races to compare with the previously tabulated results. Laws passed by the 2023 Legislature expanded the state’s Post-Election Audit Act, increasing the number of races included in the post-election audit, and requiring counties that tabulate results by hand to conduct a post-election audit.
“Montana’s elections have been nationally recognized, and one of the greatest strengths in our election procedures is theuse of paper ballots and the Post-Election Audit Act that confirms the results of those paper ballots,” said Secretary Jacobsen. “Thank you to the Montana Election Team and the State Board of Canvassers for initiating this important step in our elections.”
The Secretary of State’s website contains the list of random-sample audit selections from Tuesday’s meeting (click here). Counties across the state will begin conducting the post-election audit process before completing their county canvassing by June 16. The State Canvass is currently scheduled for June 29.