Polls in Missoula County closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday.

Counting is under way, and the first numbers you see tonight are not the final ones.

Here is where the official count lives, what the labels on it mean, and why Missoula takes longer than a county its size might suggest.

Where the official numbers come from

Missoula County’s own Elections Office posts results for local and legislative contests, and it is the authority for them.

The county publishes results as report files and labels each one — “Provisional Results” while counting and review continue, and “Official Final Results” once the count has been canvassed.

For federal contests, the county directs voters to the Montana Secretary of State’s statewide results portal. As of Tuesday evening, that statewide portal was still showing the June primary and had not yet switched over to the general election. We are not reporting a figure from either source until it carries the authority’s own label.

Why the count takes time here

According to the county, 85% of active Missoula County voters vote by mail.

Mail ballots that arrive by the 8 p.m. deadline still have to be verified and processed after that deadline passes, which is the single biggest reason a mostly-mail county reports later than a mostly-in-person one. Twenty polling places were open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and each had a drop box, so ballots were still being collected at the deadline itself.

None of that is a delay or a problem. It is what counting a mail election looks like.

What “unofficial” actually means

An unofficial result is a real count of the ballots processed so far. It is not an estimate. What makes it unofficial is that ballots may remain — provisional ballots under review, and ballots set aside for signature verification — and that the canvass has not yet confirmed the totals. A canvass is the formal review that turns a provisional count into an official one.

Zootown Lowdown does not call races and does not project winners. When we report a number, we will say whether it is provisional or official, and whether ballots remain outstanding.

What was on the ballot

This was the November 3, 2026 Federal General Election — a standard election, not a mail-only one.

Statewide, Montana voters filled 143 offices with 272 candidates on the general-election ballot, according to the Secretary of State’s candidate filing system.

The contest drawing the most attention statewide is the open United States Senate seat. Five candidates filed for the general election: Kurt Alme (Republican), Kyle Austin (Libertarian), Alani Bankhead (Democrat), Seth Bodnar (Independent) and Jami Dee Woodman (non-partisan). No incumbent is on the general-election ballot for the seat.

Montana also decided a Supreme Court Justice seat — position #4, a non-partisan race between Amy Eddy and Dan Wilson — along with Public Service Commission seats, district court judgeships, and state Senate and House seats across the state.

Which of those contests appeared on your ballot depends on your districts. The county’s own results report enumerates exactly the contests Missoula County voters decided, and we will follow it rather than reconstructing the list ourselves.

What we will publish, and when

Once the county posts a results file, we will report the contests Missoula voters decided, with every figure labelled as the county labels it, and we will say plainly what is still outstanding.

If you want to watch it yourself, go to the Missoula County Elections Office results page. That is the same source we will be reading.

If you are still holding a ballot, it is too late to mail it — see our voter guide for the drop-off rules that applied through 8 p.m. Tuesday. And for the bill that arrives whatever the result, here is what is in your county property tax envelope.

Sources

• Missoula County Elections, “November 3, 2026 Federal General Election” (checked November 3, 2026) — missoulacounty.gov
• Missoula County Elections, Election Results (checked November 3, 2026) — missoulacounty.gov
• Montana Secretary of State, Candidate Filing, Federal General 2026 (checked November 3, 2026) — candidatefiling.mt.gov
• Zootown Lowdown, Missoula County Voter Guide, October 24, 2026

Every figure in this article comes from the Missoula County Elections Office or the Montana Secretary of State. Zootown Lowdown does not project winners or call races. Figures are labelled provisional or official as the election authority labels them.