ELECTION OFFICIALS GET HEAD-START ON BALLOTS

(ANOKA) The countdown to Election Day is on, and Anoka County officials are doing what they can to get a head-start on a huge pile of absentee ballots. The votes are being opened and prepared for counting. Because of the high volume of absentees this year, Anoka County has purchased new equipment with federal COVID relief money to open the ballots and count them all.

Teams of election judges have set up shop in the lobby area of the County Government Center in Anoka to process ballots, and get them ready for counting. The Minnesota Legislature gave local officials across the state an extra week before the election for preparation. Anoka County expects to open 90,000 absentee ballots. That’s more than double the last record set in the 2016 election.

“We will start feeding them through the count machine later this week and on an on-going basis up until Election Day,” said Anoka County Elections Manager Paul Linnell. “We don’t pull any results from those counting machines until after 8 p.m. on election night. The ballots themselves are tabulated, but we don’t pull results themselves until after the polls close.”

Linnell says the goal is to have all absentee votes that have been received run through the counting machines and ready to be posted on election night. He hopes to give candidates and voters the most complete picture of results as possible.

Ballots will also be counted for a week after election day if they are mailed on time. Linnell says they’ve hired an additional 50 temporary workers to get the job done.

ELECTION OFFICIALS GET HEAD-START ON BALLOTS

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