The spine
Elections belong to the states and the people
Montana runs Montana's elections, and that's exactly how it should be. The Constitution put elections in the hands of the states and the people who live in them, not a federal agency and not a president. No president should be able to nationalize our elections or tell Montana how to run them, and I'll defend that whether that president has an R or a D next to their name.
"Don't federalize elections" and "protect the right to vote" aren't opposites, and the way they fit together is the whole position. The states run everything: the ballots, the machines, the rolls. The federal government holds one line: when a state doesn't just fall short but actively works to keep its own people from voting, Washington has to be able to step in and enforce a right the Constitution already guarantees. Not a takeover. A guardrail.
The guardrail
Restore the Voting Rights Act
That guardrail has a name: the Voting Rights Act. It was built on exactly this logic: states own their elections, but when a state actively works to disenfranchise its own voters, especially the same targeted groups history keeps coming back to, the federal government not only can step in, it must. In 2013 the Supreme Court cut the heart out of it in Shelby County v. Holder, ending the rule that certain places had to get federal sign-off before changing the voting rules. I'll vote to restore it by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Federal levers: what a Senator can do
- Pass the John R. Lewis VRAA (S.2523 / H.R.14): restore preclearance and the anti-discrimination floor the Court struck down.
- Enforce the constitutional right to vote: back DOJ civil-rights enforcement against laws written to disenfranchise, and defend Supreme Court and lower-court rulings that protect the ballot.
Secure and accessible
Voter ID, done right
Voter ID sounds reasonable on its face, and it is reasonable to ask people to confirm who they are and where they live. We've always done that, with a utility bill or the common-sense documents a poll worker can match to the rolls. But the new voter-ID and documentary-proof-of-citizenship laws aren't built to make elections more secure. They're built to demand documents that are hard to get and expensive to obtain, to solve a fraud problem the data shows barely exists, and to make people doubt elections that are already free and fair. Show me a real problem before we make it harder for tens of millions of eligible Americans, disproportionately rural, elderly, and Native voters, to cast a ballot. Secure elections and easy voting go together, and I'll defend both.
Your ballot, your business
Keep the president out of your voter file
Right now, the threat to your ballot isn't coming from some voter in the next county. It's coming from Washington. Trump's Justice Department is demanding that states hand over their entire voter files (your name, your birthday, your address, the last four digits of your Social Security number) and suing the states that refuse, all to build a national voter database. That's not election security. That's a surveillance list. No president, of either party, gets handed the keys to your ballot.
And the same rule goes for the machines. The federal government doesn't get to poke around in Montana's voting equipment or election records on a hunch. Access requires what access to anything else requires: a court-approved warrant, supported by a specific, substantiated, sworn claim. Chain of custody stays local. No fishing expeditions.
Federal levers: what a Senator can do
- Block the national voter database: oppose and defund the effort to centralize state voter files in the executive branch; defend the states being sued.
- Statutory wall around the machinery: no federal agency obtains a state's voter rolls, voting machines, or election data without a court-issued warrant on a specific, substantiated allegation.
- Confirmations & oversight: scrutinize any DOJ or DHS nominee who treats voter data as the government's to take.
Flip the frame
The people shouting "integrity" are the ones degrading it
No matter how you vote, this next part should make you angry. The loudest voices claiming our machines can't be trusted are the ones who actually made them untrustworthy. In Arizona, a partisan firm with zero election experience was handed Maricopa County's voting machines for a so-called "audit." They broke the chain of custody that makes a machine trustworthy in the first place, so the county had to junk perfectly good equipment and spend about three million taxpayer dollars on new machines. After six months and seven million dollars, they found no fraud. In Colorado and Georgia, partisan operatives literally copied the guts of voting systems and posted the data online. You do not protect a lock by handing the key to a stranger and letting them make copies.
And while they chase fraud that the data, even their own data, says isn't there, they're quietly making it harder for real, eligible people to vote: killing early voting days, attacking the mail-in ballots that most Montanans already use, pulling out drop boxes, and closing polling places, always heaviest in the communities that can least afford the extra drive. That's the actual attack on election integrity, and I'll name it for what it is.
Federal levers: what a Senator can do
- No unqualified access to election equipment: real consequences for breaking chain of custody; certified, nonpartisan audits only.
- Protect how people actually vote: a federal floor for early voting, mail ballots, drop boxes, and polling-place access, so no state can quietly strangle turnout. (Montana votes heavily by mail; this one is close to home.)
- Defend election workers: the county clerks and volunteers who run our elections, from threats and from politically-driven federal pressure.
The plan
Where she stands
The evidence
The facts
~1,400
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative group that set out to prove widespread voter fraud, built a database of every case it could find going back decades and turned up only about 1,400 cases against well over a billion votes. Their own research is the best evidence it barely happens.
Heritage Foundation Election Fraud Database · Brennan Center
$3 million
In Arizona, a partisan "audit" firm with no election experience compromised Maricopa County's machines; the county had to spend about $3 million on new equipment. Six months and ~$7M later, the audit found no fraud.
NBC News · Maricopa County · House Oversight, 2021
38 letters · 8 lawsuits
Since May 2025, Trump's DOJ has sent 38+ demand letters for states' full voter files (names, birthdays, addresses, the last four of your Social Security number) and sued 8 states that refused, while pushing to build a national voter database.
Brennan Center · NBC News · Democracy Docket, 2025
2013
The Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. The John R. Lewis Act (S.2523 / H.R.14) would restore it.
Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 · Congress.gov
Lightning-rare
Study after study puts in-person voter fraud at rates near zero. You're likelier to be struck by lightning than to commit it.
Brennan Center for Justice
Elections belong to the states and the people, not to whoever's sitting in the White House. Keep them local, protect the right to vote, and keep the powerful out of your ballot. Keep them secure and easy to vote in. I'll defend both.
Sources: Heritage Foundation Election Fraud Database; Brennan Center for Justice assessment. Maricopa County "audit": NBC News; Maricopa County Board of Supervisors; U.S. House Committee on Oversight, 2021. Mesa County (CO) and Coffee County (GA) breaches: NPR; Associated Press, 2021-22. DOJ voter-file demands and lawsuits: Brennan Center; NBC News; Democracy Docket, 2025. 2025 executive order on elections blocked by federal courts: Brennan Center; NPR; CNN. Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013); John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, S.2523 / H.R.14, 119th Congress, Congress.gov.