ACLU Montana Weaponizes Race in Latest Challenge to New Voter Registration Law

Alleged “civil rights” organizations have moved to intervene in a lawsuit challenging Montana’s latest voting legislation, claiming Senate Bill 490 disproportionately harms Native American voters. But a closer examination of the arguments raises questions about whether the claimed impacts are as significant as advocacy groups suggest.

The Law in Question

Prior to Senate Bill 490, passed during the 2025 Montana Legislative session, voters could register to vote and vote the same day all the way up until the polls closed.

SB 490 changed same-day voter registration to allow registration until noon on Election Day, providing election staff with critical time needed to verify voter eligibility.

The law still provides multiple late registration opportunities: voters can register until close of business on the Friday before an election, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday before an election, and prior to noon on Election Day itself. This means late registration remains available for parts of three different days leading up to the election.

Examining the Claims

The motion to intervene, filed by the ACLU of Montana, Western Native Voice, and the Native American Rights Fund—a Colorado-based nonprofit that received $1.7 million in taxpayer funding according to open records—seeks to join an existing lawsuit filed by the Montana Federation of Public Employees, the state’s teachers union. The organizations make several assertions that merit scrutiny:

Population Impact Claims: The intervening organizations claim “more than 70,000 people, including many Indigenous Montanans, rely on Election Day registration.” However, they provide no specific data on how many Native Americans actually register during the same-day window that’s being reduced, nor evidence that these voters cannot register during the remaining available hours—including prior to election day.

Geographical Arguments: Advocates argue that rural tribal community members face unique challenges due to distance and transportation barriers. Yet these same alleged barriers exist during the morning hours when registration remains available. The law doesn’t eliminate Election Day registration entirely—it simply adjusts the timeframe.

What’s notably absent from the advocacy groups’ arguments are specific data on voter registration patterns during afternoon hours versus morning hours, evidence that limiting same-day registration until noon creates insurmountable barriers rather than minor inconveniences, and concrete examples of voters who would be prevented from participating due to the reduction.

Questionable Statements

The rhetoric accompanying this lawsuit deserves scrutiny. Tribal leaders quoted in the ACLU Montana press release use strong language, with Fort Belknap President Jeffrey Stiffarm calling the law “racism” and claiming officials are trying to “silence our people.” Such rhetoric, while emotionally charged, doesn’t necessarily reflect the practical impact of a law that still preserves Election Day registration access for the majority of the day—not to mention the many weeks and months of registration opportunities available before Election Day.

Northern Cheyenne President Gene Small commented that “roads snowed in all morning” creates problems when only same-day morning registration is available. This line of thinking begs the question: if weather conditions prevent morning travel, how does having additional afternoon hours solve the fundamental transportation issue? Perhaps advocates should be raising concerns with their local tribal governments if roads are impassable in late spring and November.

Legislative Context and Administrative Concerns

The Montana Legislature passed this bill despite legal warnings from the same organizations bringing the suit, suggesting lawmakers saw legitimate reasons for the change that extend beyond any intent to suppress voting. These concerns likely involve election administration efficiency, poll worker scheduling, and ballot processing logistics—factors that civil rights groups don’t address in their challenge.

A key administrative concern involves election integrity: how can officials guarantee that only eligible U.S. citizens are voting when they’re simultaneously processing new voter registrations and tabulating votes on the same day? The compressed timeframe for eligibility verification creates potential vulnerabilities in the election system that SB 490’s more structured registration period addresses.

Moreover, what advocacy groups characterize as racial bias may actually reflect practical consequences of poor local governance and individual choices. Disproportionate outcomes do not automatically indicate racial bias. When tribal leaders acknowledge that weather and road conditions create transportation barriers, the logical response would be addressing infrastructure issues with tribal transportation departments—not weaponizing their own people as victims in federal court.

What’s being attributed to malice could simply be local government ineptitude in maintaining passable winter roads, or basic human nature: people waiting until the last minute, creating a bottleneck that gives election officials limited time for proper registration vetting beyond a rubber stamp.

A Pattern of Litigation

This marks the third such legal challenge in six years, suggesting a pattern of litigation against election integrity measures regardless of specific legislative details. The repeated court battles raise questions about whether legal challenges have become reflexive responses to any voting law changes, or whether these organizations have developed systems that require the precise conditions they’re fighting to preserve.

Since 2019, advocacy groups have consistently challenged common-sense Montana voting laws through litigation, regardless of specific provisions. This pattern suggests a strategy of using courts to override legislative decisions rather than engaging in the democratic process of advocacy and compromise—something Montana citizens have done en masse when they sent their representatives to Helena to pass HB 490. The pattern seems to indicate that what the ACLU wants overrides the will of the American people.

When reasonable, common-sense legislation consistently meets with apocalyptic opposition and claims of racism, it raises fundamental questions about the true motivations behind such challenges. The extreme rhetoric—calling modest administrative changes “racism” and claiming officials are trying to “silence” entire populations—is completely disproportionate to what Senate Bill 490 actually accomplishes.

This disconnect between the measured nature of the law and the inflammatory response suggests something beyond good-faith concern about voting access. When organizations repeatedly characterize administrative improvements as existential threats to democracy, reasonable observers must ask: what’s really driving this pattern of opposition?

The Real Question

If these organizations have developed systems or networks that rely on that specific 8-hour window for registering voters who might not otherwise be eligible or motivated to register in advance, then tightening that window threatens their operational capacity.

The question becomes: what exactly are they doing during those afternoon hours that they can’t do during morning hours or the days before? And why is preserving that specific timeframe so critical that they’re willing to file federal lawsuits?

While voting rights deserve protection, the repeated claims of disenfranchisement should be evaluated based on concrete evidence rather than rhetorical assertions. Senate Bill 490 represents a reasonable balance between voting access and election administration needs—a nuance lost in the advocacy groups’ blanket opposition to any voting law modifications.