| Evan Frost | MPR News
Nov. 2, 2020 Nearly 1.7 million Minnesotans have cast ballots in early voting | |
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Good morning and welcome to November. Just one day until Election Day. We can expect sunny skies and slightly warmer temperatures throughout the state. In the Twin Cities, the highs will be in the mid-50s. In northern Minnesota, highs will be between lower 40s to lower 50s, but in the southern part of the state, highs could range between mid-50s to lower 60s. Check out Updraft for more weather coverage.
November's COVID-19 numbers are not starting out much better than our October numbers.
Confirmed COVID-19 cases in Minnesota climbed past 150,000 on Sunday. Minnesota health officials reported 18 more deaths from the disease — matching the average daily death toll over the past week. That average was about nine per day at the start of October.
The daily increase in COVID-19 cases in Sunday’s report from the state health department was 2,217 — a drop from the 3,000-plus totals seen on Friday and Saturday. The number of new hospitalizations also dropped to 64, down from a record 151 on Saturday.
But looking at averages over the past week, the trend in new cases and hospital admissions is upward. Minnesota is averaging more than 2,400 new cases a day — up from 1,035 on Oct. 1.
Here are Minnesota’s current COVID-19 statistics:
2,475 deaths (18 new)150,672 positive cases (2,217 new); 129,663 off isolation2,867,411 tests; 1,869,177 people tested (about 33 percent of the state’s population)9.9 percent seven-day positive test rate (officials find 5 percent concerning) Almost 1.7 million votes have been cast already in Minnesota, the state’s top election official said Sunday.
Secretary of State Steve Simon told MPR News that 1.68 million votes — about 57 percent of total votes in the last presidential race — had been received and marked accepted by city and county election offices.
There are just shy of 300,000 absentee ballots, and ballots from mail-only precincts, that haven’t yet been submitted. But Simon said some of the voters holding those ballots were likely to vote in person and others could see their ballots arrive to be counted before Tuesday. He urged people to check the status of their ballot at mnvotes.org, and consider voting in person if a ballot remains outstanding.
“You can override the in-transit ballot. And what happens then is you will vote in-person and when that ballot arrives say Wednesday, Thursday or Friday it just won’t be counted,” Simon said. “It will be invalidated. The voter will have been shown as already having voted in-person.”
Simon also answered a number of other voter questions on a one-hour election week special on Sunday with MPR News politics editor Mike Mulcahy. If you missed it and want to listen, you can find it here.
🗳️ Have you encountered harassment or troubles casting your ballot? Let MPR News and Propublica know.
A widely shared video of Democratic nominee Jo Biden appeared to show him saying "Hello, Minnesota" to a crowd in Florida. Which, that would be embarrassing if it happened, but it didn't.
Biden indeed was in Minnesota Friday (as well as President Donald Trump, who visited Rochester) hosting a drive-in rally at the State Fairgrounds. The video that was shared had been altered to change the text on a sign and the podium to refer to Tampa, Florida, instead of Minnesota. Several images from news sources like the Associated Press confirm that the video was manipulated. Read more here.
Fact check: Trump falsely claims that votes shouldn't be counted after Election Day For starters, no state ever reports its final results on election night.
A not so good fish story: Staff with the Carver County Water Management Organization removed tens of thousands of goldfish last week from an inlet connected to Big Woods Lake, part of the Grace Chain of Lakes in Chaska.
The brightly colored species commonly found in pet stores and aquariums was first discovered in Big Woods Lake in April 2019. It’s believed that a few of the non-native fish were intentionally dumped into the lake, where they have quickly reproduced.
"The most likely scenario is that somebody or a couple people released goldfish, and they're exceedingly hardy fish,” said Madeline Seveland, a spokesperson with the Carver County Water Management Organization.
~ Matt Mikus, MPR News (@mikusmatt)
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