North Helena Valley voters face new primary polling places
Jim Darcy School dropped out as a polling place, sending four North Helena Valley precincts to new sites before primary day.
Jim Darcy School is no longer serving as a polling place, and four North Helena Valley precincts have been moved to new voting sites, forcing regular Jim Darcy voters to check their assignment before heading out on primary day.
The change splits the affected precincts by side of Interstate 15. The two western precincts were reassigned to the Lewis and Clark County Fairgrounds, while the two eastern precincts were moved to the Helena Valley Community Center at 3553 Tizer Rd. in Helena. For voters who had built a routine around the school, the shift means the old stop is no longer the right one.
Helena Public Schools leaders decided to stop making Jim Darcy School available for elections after years of use. District spokesperson Taylor Lassiter said parent and community concerns centered on keeping students and staff safe and secure during the school day, especially when election traffic and related activity were happening in a school building.
The county locked in the polling-place map in Lewis and Clark County Resolution 2026-31, adopted April 30, 2026, for the 2026 federal primary and 2026 federal general elections. The resolution reflects the county rule that polling places must be designated at least 30 days before the primary. Lewis and Clark County says it administers federal, state, county and special-purpose-district elections, keeps registration files for about 50,000 voters and relies on more than 200 election judges to staff polling places and process absentee ballots.
Absentee and mail voters also had to watch the calendar closely. Lewis and Clark County says ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, and postmarks do not count. Voters who wanted to return a ballot in person could take it to the county elections office in the City-County Building, 316 N. Park Ave., Room 168, Helena, or call 406-447-8339 for help locating the correct site. The county also offers online voter information tools for finding polling places, a useful step in a valley where precinct maps were updated in the 2023 redistricting cycle.
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