Montana Supreme Court allows Butte data center initiative onto ballot

The Montana Supreme Court ruled this week that a Butte-Silver Bow citizens’ initiative to require voter approval of data center construction will appear on the November ballot. 

In an order filed Tuesday, the court overturned a decision by the county elections administrator to retroactively change the deadline for submitting signatures for the initiative, which would have left the measure off the ballot. 

The measure came from grassroots citizens group, 406 People First, one of two groups seeking oversight of data center construction through ballot measures in Montana, with another in Yellowstone County. 

According to court documents, the county informed the organization that it had until Aug. 14 to collect the 3,652 signatures needed to get on the ballot, but on Aug. 10, the elections administrator said the submission deadline was actually July 13.

The change was in response to a new part of Montana law that passed the 2025 Legislature, increasing the time between signature submission and when election administrators had to verify signatures and approve ballots. 

That law, enacted through Senate Bill 11, passed unanimously and added a requirement that signatures be submitted four weeks before ballot certification — 10 days earlier than prior years. 

District Court Judge Frank Joseph issued a temporary restraining order on Aug. 12 while the matter wound through the court system, but on Aug. 28 ultimately sided with the city-county, concluding that the citizens group had to follow statutory deadlines regardless of how they were conveyed by elections staff. 

Denise Kelly, who is behind 406 People First, filed an emergency motion requesting an injunction with the supreme court seeking to overturn the district court’s decision. 

In its order, the high court determined the issue was of great public interest, citing the initiative’s efforts to exceed the number of individual signatures required to get onto the ballot — more than 3,652 county residents signed onto the petition. 

“The public interest is served by allowing the voters to decide their initiative powers,” the court wrote. 

However, the primary focus for the court was whether greater harm would occur if the initiative was left off the ballot, wrongly, or if it was put on the ballot, approved and then invalidated in the future for statutory violations.

The latter option — an approved initiative ultimately being overturned — is “a result we are loathe to contemplate,” the court wrote. 

“However, if we deny proponents injunctive relief with the result that the initiative does not appear on the November ballot, and we ultimately determine the district court erred, the result would be that the electorate would be denied their right to vote on an initiative that met the threshold requirements to appear on the ballot,” the order states. “The latter is the greater evil.”

The ballot initiative prohibits “any necessary authorization to construct or expand any data center within the city-county” without approval from voters.  

A similar effort for a ballot initiative in Yellowstone County faced a nearly identical problem with retroactively changed submission deadlines, but efforts to appeal the decision have not been successful.