From The New West Blog

The Montana Republican Party on Tuesday night announced it was abandoning its challenge of the legitimacy of thousands of Montana voter registrations, reports Jennifer McKee of Lee Newspapers.

In a letter to Vicki Zeier of the Missoula County elections office, Jacob Eaton, executive director of the Montana Republican Party, wrote that the group no longer wished to challenge thousands of Missoula county voters or any other voters statewide. [more]

A pair of Missoula County voters and the Montana Democratic Party filed suit in federal court Monday morning to halt broad Republican challenges of newly registered voters, and to keep harshly worded letters about the challenges from being mailed to those challenged voters.

State Republicans challenged more than 6,000 voters last week in a handful of Democratic counties and Democratic-leaning areas. The challenges were made using a private forwarding-address service and notarized by Republican Party employees, the lawsuit alleges.

"I'm a challengee in Silver Bow County!" said Democratic Party official Art Noonan. He's also a state representative from Butte. (The progressive nonprofit Forward Montana, has a new Web site where you can check to see if your registration has been challenged.) [more]

watching the polls

A new poll released Thursday by Rasmussen Reports has John McCain up 8 points over Barack Obama in Montana, 52 percent to 44 percent, a narrower advantage than the few polls conducted in recent weeks have suggested. [more]

From The New West Blog

The Montana Republican Party this week challenged the eligibility of 6,000 registered Montana voters in seven counties that have historically been Democratic strongholds, the AP reports.

It means those who are registered to vote in Missoula, Butte-Silver Bow, Lewis and Clark, Deerlodge, Glacier or Hill counties and who filled out a change-of-address card with the U.S. Postal Service in the past 18 months will likely have to verify their correct address before the Nov. 4 election. Most of the voters being challenged are registered in Missoula County. [more]

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus has accused White House and Environmental Protection Agency officials of orchestrating a “conspiracy” by squashing a decision to declare a public health emergency in Libby three years after it was revealed more than 200 people died and another 2,000 fell ill because of asbestos exposure.

On Sept. 25 the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) held a hearing to discuss a report released the previous day by Baucus, D-Mont., that describes a scenario in which top-level officials from the national Office of Management and Budget prevented the EPA from declaring Libby a public health emergency. Such a declaration would have authorized the EPA to do extensive clean-up work along with providing Libby residents increased health screening, basic services like oxygen – which many people need because of asbestos-related complications – and long-term medical health care. [more]

WHAT THEY DON'T SAY IN THE DEBATES

Last Friday, at the onset of the ongoing congressional struggle over our "main street economic rescue package," fifty million of us watched Republican presidential candidate John McCain debate his Democratic rival Barack Obama. And tonight, as Congress is finishing up our economic rescue, even more than fifty million of us will watch Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin face off with Democrat Joe Biden.

Based on what happened in that presidential debate, I strongly suspect she won't say anything about the grizzly bear or harbor seal DNA. [more]

financial crisis

Shortly after joining 227 of his congressional colleagues in opposing a $700 billion rescue of the nation’s financial sector Monday, U.S. Rep. Dennis Rehberg, R-Mont., said the legislation would have failed to prevent such an economic collapse from happening again in the future, and it did not go far enough to help small commercial banks in states like Montana.

“Are we asking the general taxpayer to solve an issue that was created by someone else?” Rehberg, Montana’s lone congressman, asked in a conference call with reporters. “I looked at the legislation; I came to the conclusion ‘yes’.” [more]

From The New West Blog

Another poll, this one conducted by Research 2000 for Daily Kos, shows that John McCain has a solid lead over Barack Obama in Montana, 52 percent to 39 percent.

Click here for the cross-tabs. One finding of note: McCain is beating Obama among the 18-29 demographic, which generally strongly favors Obama (and challenges assumptions about which way the thousands of the new Montana voters lean). [more]

A new CNN/Time Opinion Research poll indicates that John McCain holds a double-digit lead over Barack Obama in Montana, a state Obama has courted heavily in hopes of wresting its three electoral votes that haven't gone to a Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992.

The poll shows McCain up by 11 -- 54 percent to 43 percent -- in a head-to-head match up. With third-party candidates in the picture, McCain's advantage is 49 percent to 40 percent. Ron Paul, who finished second in the Montana primary behind Mitt Romney, takes 7 percent. [more]

A Reminder

If you haven't registered to vote -- and you want to avoid lines on election day -- you have until October 6.

That's the day -- 30 days before the general election -- that marks the end of the regular voter registration period. Afterwards, eligible voters will need to use the late registration process, which involves a trip to the county election office, says an announcement from Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson.

Late registration is different from regular registration. To begin with, eligible Montanans can't simply fill out and mail a voter registration card but instead must go to the county election office. It won't work for late registration applicants to go to a polling place,. Montanans who wait for late registration will likely also face longer lines. [more]