MINNEAPOLIS — It appears Minnesotans overwhelmingly heeded a warning issued the week before the election and took care of their absentee ballot business before Election Day.
At least 99.5% of all absentee ballots counted so far were cast by mail or in person before Nov. 3, adhering to traditional election rules.
Campaigns, media, nonprofits and election officials sounded the alarm that it was too late to put your absentee ballot in the mail. That came after an Oct. 29 ruling by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals that called into question the validity of ballots received during a post-election grace period set up by a Minnesota judge.
"It was a team effort letting everyone know after that court ruling just five days before the election, that 'Hey, the rules have suddenly changed because of a federal court order, please, please, please don’t mail your ballot in,'" Secretary of State Steve Simon told KARE.
"And it looks like the overwhelming majority of people who had absentee ballots out took that advice."
According to stats published by the Secretary of State's office, there were 240,364 outstanding absentee and mail-in ballots as of Nov. 3. Those were ballots that had been mailed to voters in the past 45 days that hadn't been returned to their local elections offices, either by mail or in person.
That left open the door that 240,364 ballots could theoretically still be in the mail. So how many did arrive after Election Day?
It's too early to know that figure precisely. As of Monday, Nov. 9, the number of outstanding absentees had dropped to 228,362. So that would indicate 11,448 absentees have been processed since Election Day, but we don't know yet how many of those actually arrived after the polls closed.
According to Secretary Simon, that batch of 11,448 processed ballots includes some that arrived before the polls closed but were counted on Wednesday and Thursday, something the Minnesota Legislature agreed to earlier in the year. Some of that batch includes ballots that arrived after the polls closed but were postmarked on or before Election Day.
"So, we are talking about a maximum of 11,000 votes that arrived after, but the number will probably end up being smaller than that."
Either say it's a tiny fraction of the 1.9 million ballots cast before Election Day by Minnesotans.
That batch also includes absentee ballots that were rejected. In some cases, sadly, voters made mistakes on the signature envelopes and it was too late to do a do-over. Some cases involved persons who requested an absentee but decided to vote in person instead because they were worried their ballot would arrive too late to be counted.
Grace Period dispute
A consent decree from Ramsey County District Judge Sara Grewing issued last summer created a seven-day post-election grace period that would allow ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 to be counted if they arrived by Nov. 10.
Hennepin County Elections Director Ginny Gelms says countywide 700 ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 have been received, including 200 from military members and other overseas Minnesota voters.
Under Grewing's court decree, those ballots will be counted and added to the vote totals. But, in a separate case, the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that ballots arriving between Nov. 4 and Nov. 10 must set aside after they're counted.
That way the votes on those ballots can be subtracted from the total if there's a successful court challenge brought by a campaign questioning the legality of accepting ballots after the polls closed.
"So far, all ballots have been counted, all ballots are valid – unless and until someone goes to a court and asks that some or all of them be invalidated and the court agrees," Simon explained.
The 8th Circuit ruling was in response to a case brought by Rep. Eric Lucero and fellow Republican party activist James Carson, both of who are presidential electors — they would've cast the Electoral College votes for President Trump if he had managed to win Minnesota.
It's highly unlikely the Trump campaign would challenge the late-arriving ballots at this point because the president trails former Vice President Joe Biden by 233,000 votes in Minnesota. That's more than the total remaining absentee ballots.
Whether a different campaign will mount a challenge to the late-arriving ballots remains to be seen.
"The case before court was only on the presidential election. Our position will be, if it comes to that, that’s the furthest extent or scope of the ruling," Simon explained.
"But anyone could go into court and take their best shot and try to argue it applies to other races. We would oppose that."
