Montana Had 46,000 Excess Votes in 2020 Election, Analyst Shares

Former Army Cpt. Seth Keshel, a data analyst who provided testimony to an Arizona lawsuit regarding election integrity brought against Governor Greg Ducey and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, provided his analysis of Montana elections in July. Keshel recently spoke at the Montana Election Integrity Project’s Take Back Montana election analysis event on September 22, where he revealed that Montana was tied with Michigan for second most excess votes in the nation as a percent of total votes cast.

According to Keshel, Montana had a total of 46,000 excess votes in at least twenty-five of Montana’s 56 counties. Using historical voting trends and demographic data to adjust for population growth, Keshel determined that Democrats had statistically unlikely turnout in the 2020 election. Turnout that bested Barack Obama’s historic voter turnout in 2008, despite Democrat votes waning in Montana in the years since.

Montana 2020 General Election excess vote map.
Red: obvious fraud, Yellow: Likely fraud, Green: Clean to little fraud

For example, in Missoula County’s 2008 election, Democrat Party voters increased in turnout by 9,548 votes from 2004. However, Democrats in Missoula lost 3,707 voters in 2012, the year of Obama’s reelection and lost another 1,281 voters in the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In 2020, Missoula County Democrat Party voters smashed Obama’s turnout record, bringing in 11,814 new voters for Joe Biden. 

“Trump added 64k votes in 4 years, a GOP record, but curiously, Biden, while losing by 16.4%, gained 67k votes as the state registered just 58k new voters,” Keshel shared.

After years of decline in voter turnout for Democrats, and Biden only garnering 15% of Democratic primary voter support compared to 40% for Elizabeth Warren according to a late 2019 primary voter poll from Montana State University Billings, Joe Biden surged past his predecessor to gain 2,266 more votes than Barack Obama’s historic 2008 election without being even close to matching the campaign reach and number of rallies as compared to Obama and Trump’s campaigns.

Missoula County voter turnout trends 2004-2020.

“I think [the] target here was actually [the] senate race which was an 11% race between Bullock and Daines; also a gubernatorial race.  Keep in mind, there is a big scrap in Missoula Co. right now over about 6,000 ballots thought to be illegally cast.”

Keshel is referring to a count of ballot signature envelopes from the 2020 General Election performed in January in Missoula County which showed that 4,592 ballots were missing legally required chain of custody documentation. 

In all, Keshel pointed to six Montana counties with “obviously ugly” voter irregularities including Cascade (3,000 estimated votes), Flathead (5,000 votes), Gallatin (7,000), Lewis & Clark (3,000), Missoula (6,000), and Yellowstone (6,000) and 19 counties with “suspect/likely fraud” including Beaverhead, Big Horn, Blaine, Carbon, Carter, Chouteau, Custer, Deer Lodge, Fergus, Hill, Lake, Lincoln, Madison, Park, Ravalli, Roosevelt, Rosebud, Sanders, and Silverbow.

Watch Montana Election Integrity Project‘s Take Back Montana: 2020 Election Analysis, a morning conversation with Dr. Douglas G. Frank, former Army Cpt. Seth Keshel and Law Professor David K. Clements discussed their analysis of Montana’s 2020 General Election.

In 2020, Trump won Montana by 56.92% to Biden’s 40.55%, but would have won by a larger margin if Keshel’s trend analysis anomalies were accounted for. “I estimate 46k excess votes statewide.  If accurate, and counting ONLY excess Biden vote growth, Trump should have won this state about 61.6% to 35.6%, or 26.0% - in other words, a shellacking that tracks accurately with the progression from 2012 to 2016,” Keshel said.

A full-forensic audit of the paper ballots submitted in the statewide mail-in ballot election in 2020 would reveal any discrepancies in the outcome of the vote tabulation and what other local and statewide races may have been affected by the estimated excess votes.

Montana 2020 General Election Keshel analysis sheet showing turnout changes each general election cycle and factoring in population growth.