Ex-RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel misleads on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ about Montana election law

Recently ousted Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel faced tough questions on NBC’s "Meet the Press" over her support for former President Donald Trump’s evidence-free statements about a "rigged" 2020 election.

McDaniel appeared March 24 on "Meet the Press," just two days after NBC hired her as a paid commentator on its news programs. The decision to hire McDaniel prompted a backlash from prominent voices inside NBC News, including former "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd. They argued that McDaniel’s support for Trump’s claims raised questions about her credibility as a commentator.

In the "Meet the Press" interview, McDaniel walked a tightrope, distancing herself from Trump’s most incendiary false rhetoric about the election and calling Joe Biden "the legitimate president," while still asserting that there were legitimate "concerns" about the 2020 election.

She said the Republican National Committee, now run by Michael Whatley and Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump following McDaniel’s ouster, is involved with 78 "election integrity" lawsuits. 

"I'll give you one example. One's in Montana right now with Democrats suing to say, ‘You should be allowed to be registered to vote in two states,’" McDaniel said. "Why are they suing on that?"

This doesn’t give the full story. Two liberal-leaning Montana-based groups have sued in federal court to block a law that establishes a criminal penalty for being registered to vote in more than one state. The groups argue that, under the law, people who move to Montana and fail to deregister to vote in their former state could face criminal liability, even though they don’t intend to vote in both places. Double voting is already illegal under existing Montana law.

Montana, which has a Republican governor and a Republican-controlled Legislature, is defending the law. The lawsuit is pending, with the RNC granted the right to help argue the state’s position.

McDaniel did not answer inquiries for this article placed with the Republican National Committee and NBC.

The law in question, HB 892, passed both legislative chambers with unanimous Republican support and some backing from Democratic legislators. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, a Republican, signed the bill in May 2023.

The law says that people may not "purposefully remain registered" to vote in more than one place in Montana or another state. A violation carries a fine up to $5,000 and/or up to 18 months in prison.

The Montana Public Interest Research Group, which works to register voters on college campuses, and the Montana Federation of Public Employees, a public employee union, sued in September 2023 to block the law.

The lawsuit argues that the phrase "purposefully remain registered" is vague when referring to voters who don’t intend to vote in more than one jurisdiction. It says the criminal penalties "have the effect of deterring potential Montana voters from registering."

The complaint argued that new college students in the state are particularly at risk because many of them had already registered in their home states before moving to Montana. "The ambiguities of what they need to do to comply with H.B. 892 and avoid potentially severe criminal penalties will chill them from registering and voting in Montana," the complaint argues.

The state is defending the law in federal court. In a response filed with the court, the state said the plaintiffs "ignore the obvious fact that a registrant easily complies with H.B. 892 by simply providing their prior registration information. … If the resident provides the information, there is no reasonable risk of violation."

The response added that "a person of ordinary intelligence can easily understand what is required of them in this context." 

Oral arguments were held a few days before McDaniel’s "Meet the Press" interview.

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Rachel Orey, senior associate director of the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said McDaniel’s statement "incorrectly implies that plaintiffs are trying to give Montana voters an ability to register in two states that voters elsewhere lack." 

"What matters to election outcomes is not whether individuals are registered twice, but whether they vote twice," Orey said.

Orey acknowledged that it’s "not ideal to have voters registered in multiple states, as it results in wasted election office resources and can hurt voter confidence if a voter receives election mail for an individual who has since moved from that address." 

However, standard list maintenance procedures and state-to-state collaboration can address the pitfalls of multiple registrations for a voter, Orey said, without resorting to "overly restrictive" laws that increase the risk of voters being disenfranchised.

In Montana, election officials take steps to maintain the accuracy of voter rolls.

Montana’s voter registration form asks applicants to provide previous registration information in another county or state.

The Montana secretary of state’s office then sends a notice to the secretary of state’s office in the former state, said Bradley Seaman, Missoula County’s elections administrator.

Montana election officials also receive similar notifications from other states, Seaman said.

Being on the voter rolls in two states is not unusual nationwide. Media outlets in 2017 found several instances of Trump advisers, Trump administration members and family members who remained on the voter rolls in two states.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in California who served as the Biden administration’s first senior policy adviser for democracy and voting rights, said double voting happens, but is "exceedingly rare."

"People who happen to be registered in more than one place are usually on the rolls in two places just because they haven’t bothered to remove their old registration (and the old state hasn’t gotten around to it yet), not because they plan to use both registrations to vote," Levitt said.

There’s also a paper trail, which makes the federal crime of double voting "straightforward to prosecute,"said Levitt.

The Electronic Registration Information Center was designed to help states screen for people registered in more than one state. The consortium, which includes about half the states, allows intrastate sharing of voter registration data. Montana is not a member.

McDaniel said Montana Democrats are "suing to say, ‘You should be allowed to be registered to vote in two states.’"

McDaniel misrepresented the lawsuit. Two Montana-based groups filed a lawsuit that seeks to block a 2023 state law, arguing that it makes failing to deregister to vote after a move from out of state a crime, even if the voter doesn’t intend to cast a ballot in both places. 

McDaniel’s statement has an element of truth, in that overturning the law would mean people would not be prosecuted for simply being registered in two states. But McDaniel’s claim gives listeners the wrong impression, because the plaintiffs are not seeking an affirmative right for Montana voters to register to vote in a second state. Instead, they want to protect voters who unintentionally failed to cancel their registration in their previous state of residence from being charged with a crime. 

We rate her claim Mostly False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this article.

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