Election Day 2024 is here, with dozens of races in Montana and nationally.

Election officials in counties across Montana are now counting ballots — but they’re doing that work under new rules introduced by the state Legislature last year that require some counties to adjust their procedures.

“They had an impact in the primary, but they will have a bigger impact in the general election,” said Bradley Seaman, Missoula County elections administrator.

In previous elections, counties sometimes counted votes until after midnight, then took a break and came back in the morning. That’s about to change, thanks to House Bill 196, passed and signed into law in 2023.

HB 196 says that once counties begin counting votes on Election Day, they must “continue without delay until all available ballots that can be legally counted have been tabulated,” excluding provisional ballots and military votes.

It also says that “immediately after all voters in a county have cast their ballots,” counties must publish their initial results, providing updates at least every three hours.

The effect of the changes is that election staff will be working through the night. Seaman said they have specifically brought in people to work nights so they don’t have to rely on staff members who have been on the road for hours. He said the challenge is getting people who are trained, equipped and ready for that change.

“That’s always that balance: making sure voters can get accurate and timely election results, and how do we balance timeliness with accuracy?” Sailor said. “We will always prioritize accuracy in elections – but what that means is that we are sometimes forced into creative solutions like this.”

Eric Semerad, Gallatin County Clerk and Recorder Surveyor, says his office received a Help America Vote Act grant through the Montana Department of State, allowing them to hire additional people to perform the “graveyard service.” .

“So these processes will hopefully continue at a good pace throughout the night so that we can really work hard on them and maybe be done on Wednesday afternoon instead of 9 o’clock on Wednesday evening,” he said.

Both Seaman and Semerad said the public should not expect to immediately see results from their counties when the polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday. Missoula and Gallatin counties both expect many voters to register on the same day. They won’t publish their first results as long as someone is in line.

“We want to encourage every voter to vote; we want to make sure voters are not influenced,” Seaman said. “There was no line in the primaries, so it went very quickly for us. This is a federal presidential election and we expect to serve voters after 8 p.m.”

“Some provinces can be very fast and some provinces can be very late,” he added. “That is not an issue related to how those elections went. It just depends on how long that line is.”

“We’re seeing longer lines this election than we’ve ever seen before, leading up to the election, and so I think maybe on Election Day those lines could be longer than we’ve ever seen,” Semerad said. . “We normally have a line of about three to four hours, and it can go up to six hours. If so, it could be Wednesday morning before we announce the results.”