BILLINGS — Ballots for the Yellowstone County primary election must make their way to the Yellowstone County Elections office by 8 p.m. Tuesday to be counted.
It is too late to put ballots in the mail for them to be counted.
By 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, about 32 percent of the 49,934 issued ballots have been returned, according to the Yellowstone County Elections Office.
Voters in four of the five wards of Billings will narrow down the field to the top two candidates for the City Council.
Ward 3 will not vote in this primary election because there are not enough candidates running to warrant a primary election.
Voters in Shepherd have returned about 55 percent of the 2,240 issued ballots.
Shepherd voters will decide the fate of two elementary and high school levies that together total about $12 million.
There is a new piece of paperwork to fill out if a voter is dropping off ballots for other people.
A state law passed in the fall of 2018 requires people dropping off multiple ballots to fill out a ballot collection registry form.
Q2 spoke to Yellowstone County Elections Administrator Brett Rutherford about the document last month.
"If you are dropping off a ballot other than your own you do have to sign a registry down at the Yellowstone County Court House," Rutherford said. "Or you can print it out on line and fill it out before you drop it off. If you're just dropping your own off, that's okay. But anybody else, even if it's your spouse, a parent, child you do have to fill out the form."
Each person may only drop off a total of six ballots from other people.
