Elections 411
Voting by Mail / Absentee
Absentee Voting
Overview: Absentee balloting has been used for over a century in Minnesota – it actually dates all the way back to the Civil War. Due to its long tenure in Minnesota, many safeguards have been put in place to ensure that all mail-in / absentee voting is secure.
Verification: Any time a Minnesotan completes an absentee ballot application, they must include their name, birthday, and either their driver’s license, state ID number, or the last four digits of their social security number. These pieces of information help the election workers confirm their voter registration is valid before their vote is counted.
SAFEGUARDS:
The individualized and unique barcode attached to the voter and their ballot also ensures that each voter is sent the correct ballot materials. This process also notes that the voter has submitted an absentee ballot application, and has been sent an absentee ballot. This prevents the voter from being able to vote by absentee as well as in-person.
Once completed and returned to the county elections office, every absentee ballot application gets entered into the Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS). The voter’s application and absentee ballot signature envelope are then tied to that voter with a unique barcode. This allows the ballot to be tracked in the SVRS and is why voters are able to track their ballots on the MN Secretary of State’s site. The individualized and unique barcode is also used to track the status of each ballot, in particular whether it has been replaced and whether it has been accepted for counting. This prevents the voter from being able to vote both an original ballot and a replacement or by absentee as well as in-person.
Mail-in Only Precincts:
In Minnesota, these are only comprised of precincts selected by the local governing body that are townships, unorganized portions of counties, precincts with fewer than 100 registered voters, or cities that have fewer than 400 registered voters.
Each registered voter in these areas automatically gets mailed a ballot. Unlike an absentee ballot, a mail ballot is sent only to the voter’s residence (not to any other mailing address) and is sent by non-forwardable mail. A voter who has not registered in advance or who wants to receive their ballot at a temporary location needs to apply for an absentee ballot, just as in any other precinct. Each voter can only vote one way or the other: all the signature envelopes are tracked using unique barcodes, whether they are for mail ballots or absentee ballots.
The absentee ballots that voters in mail-in only districts contain the same safeguards as other absentee ballots (unique barcodes, signature envelope information, etc.)
If you want to learn more about the process of voting by mail, you can read our blog post, How Your Mail-in Ballot Protects Your Privacy or read the section below for Opening and Processing Ballots. You can also check out our facts sheet on voting by mail, and any of the extensive and broad-ranging references used in it here.
Opening and Processing Absentee Ballots
Overview: The group of people who receive, process, and validate absentee ballots is called the absentee ballot board. Members of the ballot board consist of election judges and non partisan deputy county auditors and deputy city clerks who have been trained in the processing and counting of absentee ballots. Election judges are required to identify a 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.
There are two parts of the processing of absentee ballots. The first is receiving and verifying the validity of the absentee ballot to determine whether it meets the criteria to be accepted or must be rejected. This is done soon after receipt so that if the ballot is rejected due to a paperwork problem, the voter has an opportunity to try again.
The ballot board accepts a signature envelope if it is signed by the voter, has been properly witnessed, and has identifying information that matches what is on file for the barcode. The identifying information that is checked is the name, address, and either a driver’s license or state ID number or the last four digits of the social security number. If the identifying number isn’t available or doesn’t match, then election judges on the ballot board compare the signature on the envelope with the one from the application form. All of these checks are in addition to verifying that the voter only votes once and that if they don’t have an up-to-date registration, they submitted the proper registration materials.
After the information on the signature envelope has been verified by the ballot board, the ballots go into a secured location until they can be opened and counted. Beginning in 2023, this second phase of processing must start no earlier than the close of business 19 days before the election. The first step in counting an absentee ballot, after the signature envelope information has been verified, is to remove the ballot secrecy envelope from the signature envelope. The ballot secrecy envelopes are segregated from the signature envelopes, and the signature envelopes are kept. This step ensures that each ballot is secret.
Then, the ballots are removed from the ballot secrecy envelope. As the ballots are removed, the pairs of ballot board workers verify that each envelope contains only exactly one voted ballot and that it is for the proper precinct. If a ballot is for the wrong precinct or is not in good enough condition to be scanned, then it must be copied over onto a fresh ballot. The duplicate and the original are numbered to allow the work to be tracked and the original is separately retained.
SAFEGUARDS:
If a ballot needs to be duplicated to address a technical error that does not make it impossible to determine the voter’s intent, a team of election judges from different parties are required to duplicate the ballot following the established laws and guidelines for these types of situations.
After an absentee ballot is received and accepted, it is noted in the SVRS. So if a voter goes to vote in person after voting early by absentee, the election judge would see that they had voted already by absentee and the voter would be turned away. They do not even reach the stage of getting a ballot. Conversely, for any absentee ballot processed on Election Day, the ballot board doesn’t open the envelope until after verifying that the voter hasn’t voted at the polling place.
If a voter receives a replacement ballot for a rejected ballot or a post-election notice that their ballot has been rejected, or finds the absentee ballot status on the Minnesota Elections & Voting site states the ballot has been rejected, the letter will specify why the ballot was rejected and will include a phone number to call for further clarification from the local elections office. Additionally, it is always recommended that voters track their absentee ballot status at MNVotes.gov. If that site shows that the ballot has been rejected, that voter can call their local elections office to find out.
Use of Drop Boxes
Contrary to rumors about drop boxes, they are tightly governed by Minnesota law, and must meet minimum security and integrity standards, including collection at least once per business day and protection from tampering. Furthermore, drop boxes are maintained by the county auditor or municipal clerk, not the USPS, and the only envelopes considered are those with unique barcodes tied to a registered voter throughout the process.