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Montana ballot · Nov. 3, 2026Checked Oct. 24, 2026

3 statewide measures on the ballot.

Three statewide measures are on Montana's Nov. 3, 2026 ballot, all placed there by citizen petition: two constitutional initiatives (CI-132 and CI-133) and one initiated law (I-194). The Secretary of State lists all three as qualified for the 2026 general election ballot on Aug. 17, 2026, and the 2026 Voter Information Pamphlet covers only these three. No legislative referendum or legislatively referred constitutional amendment is on the 2026 ballot: the Secretary of State's 2026 ballot-issues page lists none and the pamphlet prints none. Other 2026 proposals on the Secretary of State's page (CI-129, CI-130, CI-131, CI-134, CI-135 and two submitted issues) did not qualify or are listed only as approved for signature gathering, and are not included. The ballot language and the 'What Your Vote Will Do' lines are the official text, quoted verbatim. The pamphlet also prints arguments for and against each measure written by committees named under state law; those arguments are not reproduced here. Committees are from the Commissioner of Political Practices' campaign electronic reporting system (CERS), as each committee's registration lists the measure it supports or opposes; Montana uses 'Ballot Issue #' numbers for proposals before they get a CI- or I- number, and registrations are quoted as filed. Court challenges are from credited news reporting and a legal-publisher summary and are labeled as reported; the court records themselves are not yet checked.

Constitutional Initiative No. 132 (CI-132) · Citizen-initiated constitutional amendment

CONSTITUTIONAL INITIATIVE NO. 132: A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROPOSED BY INITIATIVE PETITION

Would add a one-sentence section to the judicial article of the Montana Constitution saying that elections for judges stay nonpartisan. The new section would sit in Article VII, the part of the constitution that sets up the courts, and would take effect as part of the constitution if voters approve it.

Passes with: Simple majority of the votes cast on the question. Stated from the Montana Constitution (Article XIV, section 9 for constitutional initiatives); the constitution was not saved here and the pamphlet does not state the threshold.

Official ballot summary (the state’s text)

CI-132 amends the Montana Constitution to require that judicial elections remain nonpartisan.

Committees for and against

Court challenges

  • Petition by the sponsors' committee (Montanans for Nonpartisan Courts) against the Attorney General's rewrite of the CI-132 ballot statement; case name and docket number not yet checked, Montana Supreme Court: Decided before signature gathering (reported Nov. 19, 2025): the court held that the Attorney General had gone beyond his authority in rewriting the ballot statement, so the measure could go forward with the sponsors' wording. In the same ruling the court upheld the Attorney General's finding that a related proposal, Ballot Issue #6, was legally insufficient. Reported; the opinion itself is not yet checked. Daily Montanan, Darrell Ehrlick, Nov. 19, 2025: Supreme Court says AG can't rewrite ballot initiative on nonpartisan judges (reporting; read, not saved)

Sources: Montana Secretary of State, Ballot language and complete text of Constitutional Initiative No. 132 (CI-132); Full text.

Constitutional Initiative No. 133 (CI-133) · Citizen-initiated constitutional amendment

CONSTITUTIONAL INITIATIVE NO. 133: A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROPOSED BY INITIATIVE PETITION

Would add the people's power to propose and vote on laws and amendments to the Montana Constitution's list of rights, so the state could limit it only for a compelling reason and by the narrowest available means. It would also set time limits for reviewing proposals and settling court cases over them, let people take back a petition signature, stop petitions from being rejected over small technical errors, and bar government resources from being used for or against a ballot issue.

Passes with: Simple majority of the votes cast on the question. Stated from the Montana Constitution (Article XIV, section 9 for constitutional initiatives); the constitution was not saved here and the pamphlet does not state the threshold.

Official ballot summary (the state’s text)

The Montana constitution reserves to the people the powers of initiative and referendum. CI-133 amends the constitution to secure this fundamental right from interference by the government. Specifically, CI-133 requires impartial, predictable, open, and timely processes for ballot issues. Petitions and ballot statements must be approved within 90 days of the initial submission, and legal challenges to ballot qualification must be resolved before the deadline for finalizing ballots. CI-133 requires the state to allow ample time for signature gathering, prohibits disqualification of petitions because of minor or technical issues, allows voters to withdraw their signatures if they so choose, and prohibits the use of government resources to support or oppose a ballot measure.

Committees for and against

  • Support: Montanans Decide · raised $1,259.50, Aug. 26, 2026 to Sept. 25, 2026 (state filings)

Court challenges

Sources: Montana Secretary of State, Ballot language and complete text of Constitutional Initiative No. 133 (CI-133); Full text.

Initiative No. 194 (I-194) · Citizen-initiated state statute

INITIATIVE NO. 194: A LAW PROPOSED BY INITIATIVE PETITION

Would change Montana law so that the legal powers the state grants to corporations, nonprofits, trusts, partnerships and other organizations no longer include spending money or anything of value on candidate races, political parties or ballot issues. An organization that did so would lose its privileges to do business in Montana until it returned the money and certified that it complies; news and editorial content, individuals, government bodies and political committees are left out.

Passes with: Simple majority of the votes cast on the question. Stated from the Montana Constitution (Article III, section 4 for initiated laws); the constitution was not saved here and the pamphlet does not state the threshold.

Official ballot summary (the state’s text)

I-194, if passed, limits the powers of artificial persons to those powers necessary or convenient as provided by law. These powers must exclude contributing anything of value to candidate elections, supporting or opposing political parties, or supporting or opposing state or local ballot issues. Artificial persons include non-profits, trusts, partnerships, corporations, trade associations, or unincorporated associations and includes all such entities doing business in Montana. Any violation of I-194 is punished by forfeiting all privileges to do business in Montana. Those privileges may be, but are not automatically, restored upon disgorgement and certification of compliance with I-194. I-194 does not apply to the distribution of news, commentary, or editorial content. I-194 also does not apply to the state of Montana, political subdivisions, individuals, political committees, or public corporations.

Committees for and against

Court challenges

Sources: Montana Secretary of State, Ballot language and complete text of Initiative No. 194 (I-194); Full text.

What is not here yet

  • Court challenges: every entry is from credited reporting or a legal publisher's summary, labeled reported. The Montana Supreme Court's docket site (supremecourtdocket.mt.gov) is a script-driven application whose case search could not be read from the workspace; opinions, orders, dates and docket numbers are not yet checked. Lawsuits filed after the Aug. 17, 2026 certification are not yet checked beyond a web search on Oct. 24, 2026, which found none.
  • Committees: the CERS committee search filters by name only (the 'Ballot Issue' type filter returned no rows), and some name searches returned no rows when they matched many committees, so committees were found by searching the names reported for each campaign and words such as 'Nonpartisan', 'Decide', 'Montana Plan', 'Transparent Election' and 'Free Speech'. Committees with other names, and the Montana Republican Party's reported opposition to CI-132 (a political party, not a ballot-issue committee), are not yet checked. Contributions and spending are not part of this file.
  • Fiscal statements: none is printed in the Secretary of State's ballot statements or the Voter Information Pamphlet. Whether the budget director prepared fiscal notes for these measures is not yet checked; reporting on Kendrick v. Knudsen says the court struck a fiscal statement for CI-133.
  • Majority needed: stated from the Montana Constitution, which was not saved here; whether any 2025 law changed the threshold is not yet checked.
  • The Voter Information Pamphlet's cover page still reads 'for a total cost of $xx,xxx for printing' as published; this is the Secretary of State's own placeholder and is not used here.
  • The Secretary of State's 2026 page describes each measure's subject in its own words and says subjects 'may be paraphrased'; the CI-133 subject on that page differs from the certified ballot language, and only the ballot language is used here.
  • Ballot statement PDFs were extracted with pdftotext; the ligature glyphs it returns (for example in 'Specifically') are written as plain letters. No words are changed.

Gaps in the ballot records as of the date checked.