Cascade County selects former Merchant staffer as interim administrator

Cascade County selected elections office staffer Beatrice Devereaux Biddick to serve as an interim elections administrator after the commission voted to remove election duties from Biddick’s former supervisor, Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant.

Biddick, who ran in election integrity circles but denied being an active participant, was hired by Merchant earlier this year during staffing shortages.

Commissioners choose Biddick with a unanimous vote. While some in the audience said they weren’t opposed to her, largely many were still upset by the commission’s choice to remove elections duties from Merchant. At least one commenter said she sees “delay tactics” from some on the commission in making a decision on the permanent administrator.

Commissioners made the choice for an interim after taking a controversial 2-1 vote earlier this month to remove election administration from Merchant’s role as Clerk and Recorder, following mishaps and at least one active lawsuit for her handling of two May elections.

Biddick was active in election denial groups in Cascade County and in 2022 signed a petition demanding the county no longer use mail ballots or the vote tabulator machine. The petition wanted the county to require poll voting on election day only and all county voters re-register to vote.

Biddick told the Daily Montanan Friday she was no longer active in the election integrity movement in Great Falls. When asked if she believes the 2020 election was accurate she said, “well, it sure got passed.” She said she wanted to check out Great Falls Rising, a local progressive group, meetings in the future.

Earlier this year, Lynn DeRoche, who worked in the Election’s Office for 16 years under former Clerk and Recorder Rina Moore, told the Daily Montanan her last straw in serving under Merchant was when she chose to hire Biddick, who DeRoche characterized as Merchant’s friend.

Biddick said it felt “really good” to be selected for the role.

“I’m going to study the law, and dig even deeper than we have,” she said.

Commenters during the meeting Friday were largely in support of the interim selection.

Casey Cummings said Biddick’s selection was a “vindication of Sandra Merchant.”

“She trained someone that quality of a person in such a short time to run the election office,” he said. “I think it’s just amazing.”

Jane Weber, co-founder of the Election Protection Committee, a citizen-run oversight group formed to document issues out of the previous administrator’s office, said Biddick was a good choice “in the short term.”

“She’s been in the office for a year. She does know the procedures and she does have access to the computer system. So I commend you for doing that,” said Weber.

Weber made clear in later comments she is not pleased with what she sees as “delay tactics” in making a permanent decision on the administrator.

The decision for an interim administrator was delayed originally from Tuesday to Thursday, which later got pushed back to Friday, in part because Grulkowski wanted Merchant’s input on the job description.

Commissioners took most of the first hour of the meeting to go line by line through the job description for the administrator to be advertised, with Commissioner Rae Grulkowski citing her concerns, saying she only received it a half-hour before the meeting. Deputy County Attorney Carey Ann Haight responded saying the description was not new and had been given to commissioners earlier.

Grulkowski later said she sensed the staff and other commissioners’ “irritation” with going through the job description.

“This is the only time that I speak with all of you,” Grulkowski said. “This is healthy. This is what we’re supposed to do. So I am a little bit put out that that discussion went the way it did and it had to be unfavorable to people.”

Weber said the position description was in the commission’s possession for weeks.

“I believe that your position description is probably in its final form. I feel like there’s been delay tactics that are being done on this commission and games being played,” Weber said. “As a former county commissioner, two weeks is adequate time to be working with your legal office to get that finalized, so that you can move forward and constructively advertise that. It is critically important that you get that advertised soon.”

Commissioner Joe Briggs said it was critical to select an interim administrator as the county still needed to buy ballot stock ahead of the May school election and the June primary.

Merchant’s supporters reiterated their request for the county to rescind the resolution stripping election duties from Merchant, with state Rep. Lola Sheldon-Galloway again taking the podium Friday with a red stripped Christmas candle as a symbol of light.

“Yesterday was the darkest day and the longest night. I brought a candle to bring some light to this commission today,” she said.

Another commenter brought up with her a small portable lantern to make a similar point.

Sheldon-Galloway mentioned the lawsuit Merchant is involved in which challenges the way she handled two May elections and said there were other listed defendants, including the county.

“So I find that in this lawsuit, she’s just a small portion of it,” she said.

It’s unclear how long it will take the commission to hire a permanent administrator. The commission has a regular meeting scheduled for Tuesday.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Cascade County selects former Merchant staffer as administrator