Ballot snafu leads to hand count in Lincoln County

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Ballot printing errors have delayed election results for Montana's new congressional seat, forcing a small northwestern county to count votes by hand in the Republican primary race between former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and former state Sen. Al "Doc" Olszewski.

Zinke led Olszewski by 1,064 votes, or 1.3 percentage points, out of 79,198 votes counted, as of 11 a.m. local time Wednesday. Missoula County has 2,500 outstanding ballots that aren't expected to be counted until Monday, while Lincoln County has an estimated 6,000 ballots to hand count.

A vendor printed the Lincoln County ballots on the wrong-sized paper, and they could not be run through a machine tabulator, the secretary of state's office said Wednesday. By law, ballots have to either all be counted by machine or all counted by hand, spokesperson Richie Melby said.

Lincoln County Clerk and Recorder Robin Benson said in a statement that the hand count was expected to take two to three days. Election officials started counting ballots on Tuesday.

Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, was considered the favorite in the race and had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Montana gained its second congressional seat through redistricting after the 2020 census. Zinke had represented Montana in the state's other congressional district before leaving to join the Trump administration.

Zinke's tenure in the Trump administration was marked by federal investigations into his travel, political activity and potential conflicts of interest. One investigation determined Zinke lied to an agency ethics official about his continued involvement in a commercial real estate deal in his hometown.

Zinke resigned in early 2019, writing that "vicious and politically motivated attacks" against him had "created an unfortunate distraction" in fulfilling the Interior Department's mission.

The winner of the race between Zinke and Olszewski will face Democrat Monica Tranel, an attorney, in November.