4 more counties join Montana county GOP lawsuit to close primaries
Source: Missoulian
Republican leaders from four more Montana counties have asked to join a lawsuit to force the state to restrict primary election voting to only registered party members. The lawsuit was originally filed by the Ravalli County Republican Central Committee in U.S. District Court in Helena on Sept. 8.
... “These other four county committees joined for the same reasons that the lawsuit was filed,” the lawyer for the Ravalli County GOP, Matthew Monforton of Bozeman, said. “They are tired of Democrats abusing the Montana open primary law. They want to assert their First Amendment associational rights and have Republican leaders selected by Republican voters.”
... The lawsuit was prompted by the election of state Sen. Pat Connell, a Republican from Hamilton who ousted incumbent Sen. Scott Boulanger of Darby in the primary race for Senate District 43 this past June. ... Connell didn’t sign the Montana Republican Party’s official platform earlier this year because he didn’t agree with some specific language, which caused a dust-up between him and some Ravalli County Republicans.
... Connell also said that Boulanger has been trying to deflect attention away from the real reason he lost the election. “Quite frankly, the circumstances really boil down, regardless of campaign spin – and there is a lot of that – my opponent didn’t win because he didn’t get enough Republicans to vote for him,” Connell said. “And what gets lost is there are a whole lot of Republicans that did vote for me. This isn’t the first election in Montana that’s been won by just a handful of votes. The opportunity to choose and vote in primaries has been used by folks on each side of the aisle for a long, long time. It is what it is.”
Read more: http://missoulian.com/news/local/more-counties-join-ravalli-county-gop-lawsuit-to-close-primaries/article_3b4a7f20-48ca-11e4-8ba3-b3bf012ee834.html
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