“We needed both to get to the ballot,” he said.

A group must get 5 percent of registered voters in at least half of the state’s counties and at least 5 percent of total registered voters statewide to get an initiative on the ballot.

The judge’s decision provides some insight into how Safe Montana believed signatures could have been lost. According to court documents, a signature gatherer named Jordan Loyda, who worked for LC Staffing in Kalispell, collected signatures for the group from Jan. 12-June 17.

In an affidavit Loyda said his visits to drop off signatures at the county elections offices “blended together” and he had trouble recalling specific dates.

Loyda recalled in a court document he had “at least eight signature gatherer affidavits” notarized on April 27 and put on a temporary table at the county elections office. He didn’t say in court documents when these signatures were collected or how many signatures were included — details he could provide the court for other signature drop-offs.

At the end of April, Loyda said he asked the elections office why the signatures he dropped off earlier that month were not accounted for at the state level. He claims an election worker told him the petitions had not been processed or certified.