Preliminary results of the Great Falls municipal election have been released, and they show that incumbent mayor Cory Reeves has earned a second term, defeating challenger Jasmine Taylor.
In the race for two open seats on the City Commission, incumbent Joe McKenney and Casey Schreiner have come out on top.
Voters also decided on the future of fireworks within city limits, with a majority voting to limit certain types of fireworks.
The ballot question asked if the city should allow only ground-based or novelty items such as sparklers, fountains, and snap caps, while banning fireworks that leave the ground or explode, including rockets, shells, and Roman candles.
City officials said the ballot language regarding the fireworks issue may seem confusing, but it follows state election law, which only allows a “yes” or “no” vote.
Meredith Dawson, City Communications Specialist explained several days ago: “A ‘yes’ vote would mean that you agree with limiting the type of fireworks that can be sold or discharged in the city. A ‘no’ vote means you would want to keep things the way they are, not limiting the type of fireworks.”
Here are the totals as of 8 45 a.m. on Wednesday:
MAYOR
- Cory Reeves: 11,635 (72.3%)
- Jasmine Taylor: 4,410 (27.4%)
- Write-In: 57
CITY COMMISSION
- Pete Anderson: 5,241 (18.5%)
- Joe McKenney: 8,747 (30.9%)
- Matt Pipinich: 5,608 (19.8%)
- Casey Schreiner: 8,567 (30.3%)
- Write-In: 111
FIREWORKS
- Yes: 8,766 (54.6%)
- No: 7,288 (45.4%)
(1st REPORT, NOVEMBER 3, 2025) Great Falls voters have returned about 32% of mail-in and drop off ballots ahead of Tuesday's city election, with a new birth year requirement causing some ballots to be rejected.
Cascade County Election Administrator Terry Thompson said election officials sent out 30,800 ballots and have received about 9,800 back so far.
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"We're right about 9,800 of those coming back. So we're at about 32% of the number that we sent out that have come back," Thompson said.
However, a couple of hundred ballots have been deemed invalid due to missing or incorrect information.
"Out of those 274, those are the ballots that have been rejected due to no signature mismatched signature, no year of birth or mismatched year of birth," Thompson said.
This election cycle marks the first year Great Falls residents must write their birth year on ballot envelopes, in accordance with a new Montana law.
"The highest percentage, about 54% of those 274 ballots are related to no birth year being put on there or it mismatch. And most of it's not mismatch. Those are fewer. But it's actually people not putting the birth year on the envelope at all," Thompson said.
Election officials are working to contact voters whose ballots were rejected to help them resolve the issues.
Another challenge facing election administrators is the number of undeliverable ballots due to adresses that are not updated. Thompson said 1,252 ballots out of 30,863 sent were returned as undeliverable.
"The number of undeliverable ballots that we get back because voters did not update their address with us. So for this election we're actually at 1252 ballots came back out of the total, 30,863 the that we sent out. And that's a high number," Thompson said.
Thompson expects final turnout to reach around 38%, which would be considered good for a municipal election.
"I don't expect it to be probably I think it'll be under 40%. It will probably be under 38%. We're at 32% today. We have 24 hours ago, a little over 24 hours ago. So I would imagine if we get to 38%, that'll be a pretty good number," Thompson said.
Voters can drop off ballots at Exhibition Hall and the Courthouse Annex from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday.
