 Secretary Christi Jacobsen: ‘Free SAVE tool flags hundreds of deceased voter records’
HELENA, Mont. — Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen announced that the free use of the federal government’s SAVE tool has flagged roughly 900 voter records of deceased individuals who were previously not included in the death file that the Secretary of State's Office received from the state health department.
Through public outreach, Secretary Jacobsen announced a partnership with the Trump Administration to provide free access to the SAVE tool to ensure voter roll accuracy and, for the first time in history, to verify the citizenship status of Montana’s voter registration list.
“Until now, Montana election officials have never had access to the SAVE tool, and in a few short weeks, we have already identified a large number of ineligible voter records,” said Secretary Jacobsen. “The SAVE tool is a valuable addition to our ongoing work to maintain up-to-date and accurate voter rolls in Montana.”
Under Secretary Jacobsen’s leadership, Montana has become a national leader in voter roll maintenance. Last year, Secretary Jacobsen proudly announced that Montana received the 2025 National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) Innovators Award for her “Death of a Loved One Initiative,” which partners with funeral homes to simplify the process for families to remove deceased loved ones from Montana’s voter rolls.
Now, Secretary Jacobsen’s partnership for free access to the SAVE tool has enabled election officials to identify deceased voters even more quickly, alleviating the burden on grieving families, while improving voter roll accuracy and reducing the number of undeliverable ballots.
“Our goal is for election officials to be able to update the voter rolls in real time, without bureaucracy getting in the way, and this partnership brings us closer to that goal,” said Secretary Jacobsen.
With the SAVE tool flagging additional voter records, election officials are now following up in several ways, including:
- Working with the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS), to begin verifying the names of the 900 deceased individuals to have the counties remove them from the voter rolls;
- Identifying opportunities to speed the receipt and sharing of this information with election officials in the future;
- Reviewing the voter status of the flagged voter records, including whether ballots were sent to those individuals and whether any had received voter credit for participating in an election where a ballot was counted.
Election officials are also continuing to verify citizenship status, including the 23 voter records previously flagged by the SAVE tool.
The Mission of the Office of the Secretary of State is to protect the integrity of elections, be an asset to businesses and preserve official history.
|
