Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will continue slugging out the presidential campaign for nine more weeks, but some voters have already begun casting ballots.
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For the first time, state residents can start casting absentee ballots in this year’s general election on September 23 without providing an excuse for why they can’t get to a polling place, MPR News (http://bit.ly/2c3EBzV ) reported.
Early voting doesn’t take the place of Election Day voting or the standard absentee process – it is just another option to make it easier for residents to vote. Even though they lost in federal court and are mostly losing at the county level, the leaders of the state GOP have a new argument: early voting will allow dead people to influence the election in the crucial swing state.
She said it’s hard to determine which party early voting helps more, though she said in North Carolina it’s been used heavily by African American voters: in 2008, 60 percent of that state’s African American voters did so before Election day; four years later, it was 64 percent.
Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party chair Ken Martin said new ways to vote also have big implications for candidates.
Those who show up early are nearly certainly hardened partisans, setting both parties on a scramble to chase their most likely supporters and bank as many votes as possible.
Ramsey County elections manager Joe Mansky demonstrates an early voting testing station at the county’s St. Paul elections headquarters on September 9, 2016.
“It’s not a problem that’s not unique to early voting, and if it does happen, we have a system in place to solve it”, Lawson said. Under those limits, early voting could not have started until October 24, nor could it have included weekend voting. “It is a lot to ask of our voters, and we’re pleased to have the convenience of vote-by-mail and a generous voting period, as we now think of “Election Day” as being”.
Voting early risks missing the opportunity to react to an 11th hour campaign development that could change the way someone might vote, Downey said, and he is concerned about the potential for voter fraud. For the November 8 election, there will be a combined total of 725 hours of early voting, including 295 hours at the Zeidler building.
“We have a situation here where you have to be alive on Election Day”. Though absentee ballot fraud is far more common than almost non-existent in-person voter fraud, the state GOP did nothing to tighten security around that process. It’s up to local governments to make that option available.
Kline said absentee ballots are only available for the special City Council election.
1, any eligible voter from Eagan can come to City Hall and vote early.
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“It is not statewide and so the reason why I objected to it is because it was unequal treatment of voters”, said Kiffmeyer.
