ST PAUL, Minn. — New numbers released Friday by the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office show nearly 400,000 absentee ballots issued to voters have yet to be turned back in, suggesting there may be a scramble ahead to get those ballots counted.
Minnesotans have submitted applications for 1,969,728 absentee ballots, and 1,581,193 have been accepted as of Friday morning.
Thursday's decision by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals adds an urgency to the status of those ballots still out. The court's ruling casts doubt on whether absentee ballots received after Nov. 3 will be counted, despite a state plan to continue to count absentee ballots received within seven days of the election (Nov. 10).
The deadline was extended due to hardships from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In the 8th circuit's ruling, the majority opinion suggested all absentee ballots should be received under state law by county election offices by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said Friday morning in a call with reporters that if the state decides to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, an announcement should be made sometime Friday afternoon.
Numbers from Secretary of State Steve Simon's office show the increase in Minnesotans steering away from in-person voting. During the 2016 general election, just 742,021 absentee ballots were requested, with 689,722 of them turned back in.
The number of absentee ballots requested in 2020 is nearly three times the 2016 totals.
Simon says the nearly 400,000 mail-in ballots still out could still be in transit or haven't yet been mailed, so he is urging people, if they still have their ballots, to drop them off in person.
Minnesota voters who have already sent their absentee ballots by mail can track their ballot online at the Secretary of State's Office to see if it has been received by their county election office.
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Absentee ballots may also be returned in-person by 3 p.m. on Election Day, not at polling places but the county election office that sent or issued the ballot.
A list of county election office locations can be found on the Secretary of State's website.
Voters who already sent absentee ballots can also still vote in person, which will effectively cancel their mailed-in ballot.
In the state of Wisconsin, 1,967,375 absentee ballots have been applied for, and 1,738,638 have been turned in, meaning nearly 229,000 ballots are still out.
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