On Tuesday, Minnesotans will vote to determine the next governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and congressional delegation, among other local positions including Hennepin County attorney and sheriff.
If you’ve already filled out an absentee ballot but have missed the mail-in deadline, you can still drop it off at the office that mailed it to you or cast your ballot in person at your polling place instead. (Don’t do both.)
Here’s some important information if you’re planning to vote (hopefully, if eligible, you are)
Your polling place may have changed this year compared to past years due to redistricting. Election officials urge voters to double-check their registration and polling place.
People who are registered to vote should have received a postcard that lists a voter’s polling location. Alternatively, you can enter your address on the Secretary of State’s polling place finder to get the information.
What’s on the ballot?
Everyone in Minnesota has governor, attorney general, secretary of state, auditor, U.S. House and legislative races on their ballots. The other races depend on where you live and may or may not include local races. You can enter your address on the Secretary of State’s website to see a replica of your ballot.
Want to find out more about the candidates?
MinnPost has put together a Who’s Running page for statewide, congressional and legislative offices, which gives information about who the candidates are and their campaign websites.
Can I still vote if I’m not registered?
Yes! In Minnesota, you can register on Election Day, meaning that if it’s your first time voting or you’ve moved recently and haven’t changed the address on your registration, you can do it at your polling place.
Just make sure you bring the proper identification, like a valid ID with your name and current address on it. Other options can be found here.
Absentee ballot questions
If you’ve filled out an absentee ballot but haven’t gotten around to mailing it in or dropping it off, you still have options.
You can either vote in person on Tuesday at your polling place until 8 p.m., drop off your ballot at the elections office that mailed it to you or have a trusted person drop off your ballot at the elections office. If you choose to do the latter, your chosen person needs to show ID with their name and signature and must drop off the ballot by 3 p.m. on Tuesday.
“We always see a surge of absentee ballots through the mail this last couple days because people are filling them out and mailing them back because obviously anything received after Tuesday 8 p.m. will not be counted,” said David Triplett, manager of elections for Ramsey County.
Worried if your absentee ballot has been received? You can check your ballot’s status here.
Some counties have had early in-person voting. In Ramsey county, there’s been a shift from mail-in ballots to in-person voting, Triplett said.
“I think there’s a general interest in people wanting to vote when they can put their ballot through the ballot counter, know that it’s been read, if they’ve made an error on their ballot such as an overvote or mismarked one of the marks where it can’t be read, the machine will kick it back out and give that voter an opportunity to correct that mistake,” Triplett said.
Ramsey County added four locations for early voting last week, making six places in the county where people can vote early in person. Triplett says they’ve seen 11,000 voters in that week, compared to the nearly 10,000 voters in the five weeks prior.
As of Nov. 4, the county saw 44,000 absentee voters, of which 39% were in-person early voting.
In Hennepin county, 184,000 absentee ballots have been sent out as of this morning, according to the county’s elections director Ginny Gelms. The county has received back and accepted 154,000 ballots, which includes mail voting and early in-person voting, she said.
The absentee turnout so far in Hennepin County is less than in the 2020 election, where 70% of the votes were cast absentee, Gelms said. However, the county’s absentee turnout is higher than it was in the 2018 midterm election, according to Gelms.
“Maybe that means that we’ll have more people voting in this election than in 2018; maybe that just means that we’re seeing more people choose to cast their ballots absentee,” Gelms said.
Other questions?
Answers to most voter questions should be available on the Secretary of State’s website or on county elections websites. If you prefer to talk with someone, you can also call your local election office.
Good piece. The links to the Secretary of State’s web pages are appreciated. The sample ballot and the polling place finder are clearer and easier to use than ever before. That’s one thing Steve Simon has really improved.
I appreciate knowing that I could look up local election races through your link. I may not have seen it listed before, so I don’t know how early you actually made that available, but I voted quite a while ago and had no information about local races (school board, city council, etc.) and that wasn’t helpful. I think virtually all of the media sources were thinking that voters only need the local information a day or three before the November election day. With all the early voting options in Minnesota, that thinking is ridiculous. All the other reporting on candidates for state and district positions was remarkable and helpful. Thanks, MinnPost.