Officials race to notify voters about absentee ballot deadline change after court ruling
UNITED STATES - OCTOBER 3: Absentee mail in ballot for the 2020 general election. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) ((Photo By Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) / Getty Images)
ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9) - Following a federal appeals court's ruling ordering that absentee ballots in Minnesota must by received on Election Day, the Minnesota Secretary of State Office and campaign officials are scrambling to notify voters of the changes.
Thursday night, a federal appeals court ordered that absentee ballots in Minnesota must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day or 3 p.m. if they are being dropped off in-person. The deadline had been extended so that ballots received up to seven days after Election Day would be accepted as long as they were postmarked on Nov. 3, but this ruling now changes that.
On Friday evening, Simon announced while his office disagrees with the order, he will not be seeking a stay of the order.
During a press conference Friday, Simon said he didn't want to spend time "nitpicking" the order and wanted to focus on informing voters on how to make sure their vote will be counted under the new deadline.
"We just have to focus on the voters right now," said Simon. "It’s very easy to get caught up in disappointments, or frustrations. We don’t have time for that. We need to focus on the next four days on the voters. and making sure every last legally cast ballot counts. That’s the mission."
The office is working on releasing ads with updated information.
Minnesota DFL chairman Ken Martin said the party switched its entire get-out-the-vote effort over to notify voters about the 8th Circuit ruling. The party has called and texted people who'd asked for absentee ballots, telling them to drop them off in-person or vote on Election Day.
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith's campaign will launch a TV ad putting "significant resources" behind it on the same message, Martin said.
"I don’t think anyone should hold out hope (of a quick legal reversal)," Martin said. "If you want to vote, go in person and vote on Election Day or drop off your ballot in person."
Minnesota GOP chairwoman Jennifer Carnahan said her party has not changed its turnout strategy to respond to the 8th Circuit's ruling. Most Republican voters typically vote in person.
"Democrats have been very constantly pushing a narrative to have people to vote by mail only, whereas we haven’t been doing that," Carnahan said in an interview.
Ballots that come after the Election Day deadline will need to be segregated from the other ballots and preserved. The order did not automatically invalidate those segregated ballots. At this point, an entity would need to formally move to invalidate the votes. Until then, the votes would be allowed to be counted, but the ballots need to be segregated so that they can be removed from the vote totals in case there is a final order that determines the votes will be invalidated.
Absentee ballot guidance
At this time, election officials say it is too late to send your ballot back by mail.
- Voters who have already put their ballot in the mail can track their ballot at http://www.mnvotes.org/track. If their ballot has not yet been received, the voter can vote in-person either by absentee, or at their polling place on Election Day.
- Voters can deliver their ballots to their county election office by hand (or have someone they trust hand-deliver it for them).
- Voters can cast their vote in-person with an absentee ballot at their local election office up until November 2, 2020.
- Voters can cast their votes in-person on Election Day