Special election better, but not perfect

There's no doubt that voters learned a lesson from the hundreds of mail-in ballots that didn't get to the Carlton County Courthouse in time to be counted in the primary election on Jan. 22.

Carlton County Auditor Paul Gassert said there was much greater "turnout" for Tuesday's election from citizens living in mail-in voting precincts versus the primary election on Jan. 22.

"By mail, but mostly in person," he said.

One woman even paid extra to have her mail-in ballot delivered by priority mail, according to Gassert, adding that many more voters actually drove to the courthouse with their mail-in ballots, to make sure they were received and counted in Tuesday's special election for the Minnesota State Senate District 11 seat.

Barnum-area resident Heidi Gist was one of those who drove to the courthouse to hand in her ballot Monday after receiving her it in the mail on Friday, Feb. 1. Gist said she checked on the status of her primary vote while she was there, and discovered the auditor's office didn't get it until Jan. 25, three days after the primary, so it didn't count.

"In the mail it has to go from Barnum to Minneapolis to Carlton," she said. "So that makes it tough. But I'm sure getting those [candidate election] fliers in the mail fast. Like three a day."

On the other hand, Barnum's Ed Langness and his wife received their mail-in ballots from the county Thursday, and mailed them back from the Barnum post office around 6:30 a.m. Friday. They stopped by the courthouse Tuesday to see if their ballots had been received; if not, they would have voted there.

"They got them Monday," Langness said.

Turnout is tripled

Out of a total of 2200 mail-in ballots sent out by his office for Tuesday's special election, Gassert said they'd received about 900 back as of election day, plus another 500 people voted absentee before Tuesday. That was nearly three times the 467 absentee- and mail-in ballots accepted for the primary election.

The same held true of the special election turnout, which was 34 percent in Carlton County for the general election, versus just over 11 percent for the primary.

Nearly as many mail-in ballots went uncounted in the primary election as were counted in the primary. Gassert didn't have an exact number yet, but said they counted more than 400 within a week of the Jan. 22 election with some primary ballots still trickling in.

As good as the response was, Gassert knows the special election would face similar issues with mail-in ballots. He received 54 ballots for the special election on Wednesday, the day after, with more likely to arrive over the next few days.

Gassert added that very few people voted absentee by mail for either the primary or the general election, because of the extremely compressed time frame of the special election.

Others were likely blissfully unaware.

"I'd give you that a ton of folks, like people that went south for the winter, didn't even realize there was a special election," Gassert said.

Another population that sometimes votes absentee by mail includes seniors and people with handicaps who find it difficult to get to the polls on election day and/or who might not have easy access to a vehicle to drive to the courthouse to vote absentee.

Most people who voted absentee in the special election did so at the courthouse.

Issues with state law

Tuesday marked exactly 32 days since former state senator Tony Lourey was appointed Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services, and then Gov. Mark Dayton declared a special election for his seat.

Current state law allows no more than 35 days between the Governor's issuance of a Writ of Special Election to the date of the General Election. That law was updated in 2008 to change the statutory time period from 28 to 35 days, according to Secretary of State communications director Ben Petok, who said Secretary Simon is lobbying the legislature to further expand the time for a special election to ensure that all voters, and especially those in mail-only precincts, can have their vote counted.

State statute also states that a special election "must not be held during the four days before or the four days after a holiday as defined in section 645.44, subdivision 5."

That section of state statute does include Martin Luther King's birthday, observed on the third Monday in January, which was the day before the Jan. 22 primary election.

According to Petok, the SOS office decided that the law applied to the special election, but not the primary, so concluded that "a special primary could be held on Tuesday, Jan. 22."

Senator-elect Jason Rarick said he has already spoken to Secretary Simon and Gov. Tim Walz about the special election that will now be held to fill his soon-to-be-vacated District 11-B State Representative seat, which includes nearly all of Pine County and just over half of Kanabec County. Rarick said there are some mail-in precincts included.

"I do believe we will get an extra week because it takes some time for the [state senate] election to be certified," he said. "Hopefully both parties will do an endorsing convention and get it down to one candidate, so there doesn't have to be a primary."