Montana Title 7. Local Government § 7-2-2504. Verification of petition signatures--county clerk's certification

(1) The county clerk of the county in which the petition provided for in 7-2-2503 must be signed shall compare the signatures of the voters signing the petition with their signatures on the registration books and blanks on file in the clerk's office for the preceding general election. The county clerk may not retain a petition or any part of a petition for a longer period than 2 days for the first 200 signatures and 1 additional day for each 200 additional signatures or fraction of that number on the sheets presented to the clerk. At the expiration of that time, the clerk shall file the petition with the clerk of the district court, with the county clerk's certificate attached to the petition as provided in subsection (2).

(2) After comparing the signatures, the county clerk shall attach to the sheets of the petition containing the signatures a certificate to the district court, substantially as follows:

(3) The forms in this section are not mandatory, and if substantially followed in any petition, it is sufficient, disregarding clerical and merely technical errors.