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One week after Rep. Jeff Essman, R-Billings, the state Republican Party chair, apologized to  Rep. Jacob Bachmeier, D-Havre, for official GOP Facebook and Twitter posts insulting the freshman legislator, Essmann now has irritated some officials from his own party.

Essmann issued an “Emergency Chairman’s Report” Wednesday saying that, somehow, getting more people voting by using a mail ballot in a special election for Congress would favor Democrats — so Republicans should contact their legislators and tell them to vote against it.

Four Republican county clerks and commissioners, including Liberty County Clerk and Recorder and Election Administrator Angel Colbry, quickly issued an “Immediate Press Release” repudiating Essman’s report.

“I am so angry about this statement,” Colbry said in the release. “To suggest that we forego tremendous cost savings in order to stifle turn-out is an irresponsible statement. That’s not who we are as Republicans.”

Colbry has reason to be angry.

Essmann says that Democrats have an advantage because they are better at organizing people “to gather ballots by going door to door.” Whatever that means.

He also says the Democrats raise and spend more money in Montana, giving them an advantage specifically, somehow, in mail ballots.

The mail ballot process, Essman says, “is designed to increase participation of lower propensity voters” — to get more people out to vote. That, he says, favors Democrats.

He adds that the bill could allow use of alternate voting offices on Indian reservations, getting more people on reservations to vote. That is a “Democrat advantage,” he writes, and should be opposed.

So Essmann seems primarily to be opposed to holding a less-expensive election that encourages more people to vote.

His warning also seems to contradict his party’s stance on years of support for measures such as limiting late registration, more stringent voter identification requirements, and so on. The GOP has said the purpose of such legislation is to restrict voter fraud, not to suppress the vote.

What Essmann says is getting ballots to “lower propensity voters” favors Democrats and should be opposed.

His stance that getting more people out to vote favors Democrats also seems contradictory.

Montana has voted Republican in most presidential elections for decades, regularly elects Republican members of Congress and governors — Republicans held the Montana governor’s office for 20 years straight before Brian Schweitzer was elected — last election picked Republicans for four of the five state offices and has elected Republicans to the majority in both houses of the state Legislature for all but three of the last 12 sessions, since 1995.

Montana typically is called a red state. Logic would dictate that if the state has more Republicans, getting more people out to vote would favor Republicans.

Essmann’s “logic” finds otherwise.

Montana clerks and recorders — from both parties — have been lobbying for years to switch all of Montana’s elections to mail ballots, as is done in Colorado, Washington and Oregon. They cite incredibly higher voter turnout in mail elections, lower costs, difficulties finding enough judges to work the polls and declining numbers of voters at the polls — as more and more people switch to absentee voting — as some reasons for the change. The Montana election officials have yet to succeed.

The effort this year is different, just to allow mail ballots in one special election in an effort to save thousands of dollars, dollars that potentially could put some counties into the red if they have to hire judges and open polling places.

But Essmann warns that the victory Democrats could win in this special election could help them push mail ballots through for every election, giving them an advantage in Montana — by more people voting. Republicans should oppose that, he says.

The purpose of a democracy is to give people a chance to have a say in their government. The more people who vote, the better the democracy. Essmann is saying people should be opposed to that.

Essmann’s “Emergency Chairman’s Report” is not just an insult to Republicans, it is an attack on democracy.