Montana

Search by jurisdiction: county below the signature lines
Soft matching: yes
Signing dates: no sandwiching, year is not required
Transcribing: not allowed

Circulator Declarations

How to process declarations in Montana depends on whether most of the info is preprinted or handwritten.

For Landslide and any other job where the info is pre-printed, there is no shorthand. Enter the start date in the top half, and check the box only if signed by the circulator. Enter the signed on date in the bottom half. Check the box only if the location of signing has the city and state. Check the last box only if the circulator signed in the bottom half of the form, too.

For Team Kennedy and any other job where the info is all handwritten, the top portion shorthand is the

1. first letter of first name in the top portion of the page
2. first letter of last name in the top portion of the page
3. first digit of house number
4. first letter of street name
5. first letter of city
6. first letter of state
7. full 5-digit zip code

Enter the start date, and check the box if the the circulator signed their name in the top portion of the page.

The bottom portion shorthand is

1. the first letter of the city where signed (where it says at ___)
2. the first letter of the state where signed
3. first letter of first name in the bottom portion of the page
4. first letter of last name in the bottom portion of the page
5. first digit of the phone number (if not a complete phone number with area code, enter only a dash instead

Enter the signing date and birthdate, and check the box if the the circulator signed their name in the bottom portion of the page.

Enter the signed on date in the bottom half. Check the box only if the location of signing has the city and state. Check the last box only if the circulator signed in the bottom half of the form, too.

Signatures

If prompted, enter the single letter code in the lower left corner. Ignore the numbers. Only enter A, M, or T. Resize the Scan window if necessary to see the whole form. Press Enter to continue.

After entering the petition code, you will be prompted to enter the circulator initials in the lower right corner of the form. The goal is to make sure the form matches circulator it was uploaded as. If you can see the bottom of the form and the initials spot is definitely blank or filled out with something other than initials, press Enter while the data entry field is blank.

Dittos are allowed.

City and zip code are not required. There is no -c0.

The address can be a street name, a P.O. Box or other box number, a phone number, or even nothing more than a town name. It is only -a0 if all those are missing.

Special Search Options

To search by phone number, enter the entire 7-digit number with no hyphens and no area code in the custom search street field.

To search by box number, enter only the box number with no letters or spaces in the street custom search field.

You can use the @ wild card, but avoid the * wild card for these special options.

You can hard match a street address against a street address, a box number against a box number, or a phone number against a phone number. Only one of the three needs to match the database to be a hard match. (Almost half the voters have a box number or phone number in the database.) If only a street name or only a town name is written, you can try to soft match it.