Good morning and Happy Election Day, Here's what to watch as the final votes for President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are cast. Minnesotans head to the polls Tuesday to elect a president and a U.S. senator, decide several closely watched races for the U.S. House, and determine party control of the Minnesota Legislature for the next two years. For many Minnesota voters, their Election Day has already come and gone — more than 1.7 million have already cast their ballots, according to Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon.
Polls in Minnesota open at 7 a.m. until 8 p.m. You can still vote if you are in line by 8 p.m. Minnesota also has same day voter registration. Follow our coverage here.
See how things are going at the polls today and follow along with live coverage until the last vote is counted (it could be days or weeks). Inform our reporting if you see or experience something wrong at a polling location.
How does MPR News determine who wins an election? We rely on the Associated Press to count and call races. Here's how they do it.
Officials in Minnesota and across the country are preparing for threats against the integrity of Tuesday’s election, ranging from the spread of false information to voter intimidation. In an election that’s already complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and a contentious presidential race, state officials are expressing confidence that the state’s election system is up to the task.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday that they’d be sending federal election monitors to 44 jurisdictions around the country, including the city of Minneapolis. The agency said in a statement that the effort was to preserve the rights of all voters.
But late Monday morning, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said he wasn’t notified about the U.S. Department of Justice’s plans. Simon said that state law would prohibit law enforcement agents, including the monitors, from entering a polling place unless they’re invited by local authorities.
“Absent any independent federal authority that I’m not yet aware of, I don’t understand how federal observers from the Department of Justice will be afforded automatic access to polling places in Minneapolis or anywhere else,” Simon said.
Minnesota is no stranger to having its elections spill into the courts. It had back-to-back statewide recounts, including a 2008 Senate race that took until the summer of 2009 to resolve.
Already, a federal court has ordered Minnesota’s election managers to set aside ballots that arrive in the days after the election despite a seven-day delivery grace period that was promised for months.
Those ballots will be counted but be segregated in case votes have to be removed from tallies later, said DFL Secretary of State Steve Simon, noting that the count will lay bare whose votes the campaigns are seeking to subtract.
In general, Simon expects the level of litigation to be dictated by the closeness of the outcomes.
“If the margin in Minnesota is wide, there will be less likelihood of litigation. If the margin of Minnesota is slim, there will be more likelihood of litigation.”
Both Republicans and Democrats have been enlisting lawyers just in case.
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