Elections Administrator – No Primaries Needed For City Elections
There will be no primary election required for the upcoming municipal elections for mayor, the city council and for municipal court judge,
Missoula County Elections Administrator Rebecca Connors sent a letter to Mayor John Engen and the city council for Wednesday's Committee of the Whole.
"There is a little bit of a calculation to find out if a primary needs to be held or not," Connors said. "Based on our calculations, we've determined that a primary is not warranted, because the law states that if there is an excess of three candidates, three or more, within a majority of the races, then a primary is required. We have only one race out of the three that actually has four or more and that does not constitute a majority."
Only Ward Four has four candidates, and the city may opt to have a primary in that race.
Connors walked through the various races.
"First, for mayor, we have John Engen, Lisa Triepke, and Madison Schroeder, she said. "In Ward One we have Bryan von Lossberg and Jamelet Laursen. In Ward Two we have three candidates for two different positions, they are incumbent Jordan Hess for a four year term, and for the other two year term there are Ruth Ann Swaney and Jack Metcalf. For Ward Three, there are Heather Harp, Thomas Winter and Jon Van Dyke. There are four candidates in Ward Four. They include incumbent Jon Wilkins, Greg Strandberg, Chris Badgley and Jesse Ramos. In Ward Five there are Stacie Anderson and Cathy Deschamps. In Ward Six Julie Merritt is running unopposed. For municipal Judge there are the incumbent Kathy Jenks and Brendan McQuillan."
The general election will be held on November 7, 2017.