Reporting by James Kling, St. Cloud Times
With early voting opening on Friday in Minnesota, the League of Women Voters of St. Cloud Area hosted an informational session on voter registration, accessibility and election security on National Voter Registration Day, Sept. 15.
Minnesota, the Secretary of State’s Voter Outreach Director Melanie Hazelip said, is consistently one of the most well-administered states for election season. For the past several election cycles it has been No. 2 in MIT’s Election Performance Index and was bumped up to No. 1 this year.
Part of the reason, Hazelip said, is the election security.
Minnesota is usually among the top states in the country for voter turnout. She said it’s important to be proactive about the large turnout, so voter registration across the state is updated daily.
This happens until Election Day, she said, because Minnesota allows same-day voter registration.
“Every day, the Minnesota Department of Health, the Social Security Administration, Department of Corrections, Driver and Vehicle Services and U.S. Postal Services update their data into the system,” she said, “so that we know dead people are not voting, … we know that (non) United States citizens are not voting, we know that people who are in prison for a felony offense are not voting.”
New this year, however, is that those with felony convictions who are out of jail can now vote.
Minnesota voting contingency plans
An additional part of election security is the Secretary of State Office’s contingency plans. It meets with representatives from each county and comes up with plans for extenuating circumstances such as blizzards, floods and power outages around polling locations.
“When Secretary (Steve) Simon talks about the contingency plans that we make these days, he adds that, sadly, we do have to plan for potential federal interference,” Hazelip said.
She added that officials within her office do not believe federal officers, including ICE agents, will try to arrest anyone at the polls. The laws on the books state only those actively participating in the elections — voters, people assisting them and poll workers — are allowed within 100 feet of an election site. Polling places will often work with local law enforcement to make sure these laws are followed.
There have also been very few convictions of noncitizens voting in Minnesota.
“There was a University of St. Thomas professor” — Virgil Wiebe — “who studied 10 years of elections, over 13 million ballots cast from 2014 to 2024,” she said. “He found three convictions, actual convictions, of noncitizens voting.”
The Department of Justice will sometimes send out observers for the purpose of making sure voting laws are upheld, but they aren’t usually tied to immigration or customs enforcement.
“The counties have the right under law to choose if they want to allow the DOJ observers in polling places or not,” Hazelip said. “This year, for the first time, Hennepin and Ramsey said ‘No,’ because of everything that’s happened recently in Minnesota.”
Early and absentee voting in the St. Cloud area
There are two early voting locations in Stearns County, St. Cloud City Hall and the Stearns County Service Center in Waite Park. The Benton County polling station is at the Benton County Government Center in Foley. The Sherburne County sites are the Sherburne County Government Center in Elk River and Elk River City Hall, which is only for residents of Elk River.
These votes count as absentee votes, Hazelip said, and are not counted or tabulated until after polling sites close at 5 p.m. on Election Day.
The same is true for mail-in votes, which Hazelip said are counted only if they are received by Election Day; ballots sent on Election Day that arrive late are spoiled. It is wise, she said, to send it in the mail at least a week ahead of time, and request it early if you’re abroad.
Otherwise, any voting done before Election Day, whether it be at an early voting site or from mail, will remain the same as it has in recent years.
She said the Secretary of State’s office has received many questions about recent requests to restrict the process from President Donald Trump.
“None of the executive orders have held up in courts,” she said. “The SAVE America Act did not pass. Nothing has changed about how our elections are administered, and nothing has changed about how you, the voters, access elections.”
Election accessibility
Voters can request ballots and election information in a variety of languages, including Spanish, Hmong and Somali.
“Minnesota has actually offered voter information in different languages since the late 1800s,” Hazelip said. “Back then, it was Swedish and Norwegian and German.”
She said people who are fluent in English might still find it easier to digest complex information, like government documents and voter pamphlets, in their native tongue, which is why the state updates the languages on a continuous basis.
If a voter is disabled or has any reason not to go inside the polling precinct on election day, they can request a curbside vote.
“You will have two election judges from each party bring the ballot out to your car — and they can’t say ‘well, why do you need this?’ there’s privacy concerns there,” Hazelip said. “You fill out the ballot in your car, you give it back to those two election judges, and then they go put it in the tabulator.”
Meet the candidates in the St. Cloud area
The League of Women Voters of St. Cloud Area is hosting several candidate forums in the coming weeks. It has published candidate information and ballot previews on it’s website, vote411.org/minnesota.
Sheila Ferguson, with the local LWV chapter, said the first of these is for the District 14 state Senate candidates.
- 6 p.m. Sept. 29 — District 14 state Senate candidates, Mississippi Room at the St. Cloud Public Library,
- 7 p.m. Oct. 6 — St. Cloud District 742, 1201 Second St. S., Waite Park
- 7 p.m. Oct. 7 — Minnesota Legislative District 13, Sartell Community Center
Future forums and more information on the LWV can be found at lwvsca.org.
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times.
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