Trending
This is the third in our three-part series on the process of absentee/mail-in voting in Minnesota. This article will describe the ballot board in charge of reviewing absentee/mail-in ballots and the steps the ballot board takes to prepare absentee/mail-in vote ballots for counting.
The first part of the series described the importance of Absentee/mail-in voting for voters who may not have access to the polls on election day and for voters who live in sparsely populated voting precincts. Part one also described the security measures of the ballot itself which is tracked to the registered voter who was issued the ballot. Part two of our series explained the process of reviewing and confirming the legitimacy of each absentee/mail-in ballot. The process is designed to make sure voters do not have the opportunity to vote more than once in an election. The article also explained when voters could correct their ballot if it had been submitted incorrectly.
Absentee/mail-in ballot board
The group of people who receive, process, and validate absentee/mail-in ballots is called the absentee/mail-in ballot board. Members of the ballot board consists of election judges and nonpartisan deputy county auditors and deputy city clerks who have been trained in the processing and counting of absentee/mail-in ballots. Election judges are required to identify their party affiliation, because two election judges of the same party cannot work together. This is one of the safeguards in the system. Moreover, a couple of particularly sensitive tasks can only be done by these bipartisan teams of election judges, not by the deputies. Only election judges can compare signatures and supervise the duplication of non-scannable ballots.
Counting absentee/mail-in ballots
Beginning on the 18th day before the election, the ballot board members begin the process of removing ballots from the accepted absentee/mail-in signature envelopes. The accepted signature envelopes have been reviewed and determined to be properly submitted as described in part two of this article series. The ballot board opens the signature envelopes and removes the secrecy envelopes. Each secrecy envelope contains a ballot. The secrecy envelopes are set aside from the signature envelopes so that no one knows whose ballot is whose. Once the secrecy envelopes are separated, they are opened, reviewed by ballot board members, duplicated if necessary, and inserted in the ballot counter. (Ballots need to be duplicated if a ballot is not readable by the ballot counter, for example if a ballot is damaged or on the incorrect ballot style for that precinct.)
Absentee/mail-in ballots may be inserted into ballot counters starting 18 days before election day. However, the vote totals from these ballots are not tallied or produced until polling places close at 8 p.m. on election night.
"Empowering Voters" is a program of the League of Women Voters - New Ulm, a trusted source of nonpartisan voter information, serving New Ulm and the Brown County area to ensure free, fair and safe elections. To learn more, visit newulm.lwv.org or follow our Facebook page.