More on Forward Montana's Voting Rights Win Against Local GOP Chairman

More news is coming out of Montana about the recent win against GOP voter suppression attempts. Looks like Jake Eaton, the GOP Chairman behind the voter challenges, has packed up his things and headed for the hills:

HELENA - In an unusual move three weeks before the election and after a failed attempt to challenge voter registrations in some Democratic strongholds, the Montana Republican Party said Tuesday night it was changing executive directors.

Former state Rep. Larry Grinde of Lewistown was named the party's executive director after Jake Eaton resigned “to pursue other interests,” the news release said.

Here's a statement on Eaton's departure from our friends at Forward Montana:

Eaton's departure marks an opportunity for the Montana Republican Party to make a renewed commitment to the rights of voters. While the civil rights of thousands of improperly challenged voters, including my own, have now been protected, it would be imprudent to think that similar challenges are impossible in the future.

Forward Montana remains dedicated to seeing legislation introduced and passed during the 2009 to prevent similar challenges. Ideally, these changes will present a multi-faceted solution to this problem, including raising the bar for filing challenges, providing penalties for malicious or false challenges with heightened penalties when the challenges target overseas voters, and bringing Montana's voter registration system into the 21st Century. Universal voter registration through an improved use of technology and better integration of state government will reduce opportunities for voter fraud and voter suppression, while enabling more citizens to be involved.

They also put out an excellent video explaining the challenges and how they disproportionately affected young, progressives in the state: