03-11-2015 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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515 Little Canada Road, Little Canada, MN 55117-1600 (651) 766-4029 / FAX: (651) 766-4048 www.cilittle-canada.mn.us MEMORANDUM TO: Mayor Keis and Members of the City Council FROM: Kathy Glanzer, City Clerk DATE: March 5, 2015 RE: Resolution in Support of Early Voting MAYOR John Kcis COUNCIL Rick Montour Michael McGraw Tom Fischer Christian Torkelson ADMINISTRATOR Joel R. Hanson The State Legislature is currently considering a bill that would establish early voting 15 days prior to Election Day through 5 p.m. on the third day before an election, and City staff is requesting that the Council consider adopting a resolution in support of an early voting process. It should be noted that both the League of Minnesota Cities (see letter attached) and Ramsey County Elections are in support of this legislation. By way of some background, prior to 2014, there was a process in place which would allow voters to vote prior to election clay by absent ballot provided that they had an excuse to do so. In 2014 "no -excuse" absentee voting was implemented. Under both of these scenarios voters could vote in person or by mail, but in both cases there was an application form as well as a series of envelopes that were utilized to complete the process. When a voter carne to the counter to vote, City staff was available to ensure that envelopes were completed properly. When a voter voted through the mail, this envelope assistance was not available and many times when absentee ballots were processed during the week before election day, errors on the envelopes would be discovered and the ballot had to be rejected and a new ballot mailed to the voter with a letter explaining why the ballot was rejected. Please note that the City is responsible for all postage associated with mailing absentee ballot (in 2014 that postage was $1.38 per ballot). In the final absentee ballot processing step, ballots that are accepted are separated from their envelopes to ensure voter privacy, and are then run through the vote tabulating machine. Any ballot that is marked incorrectly is processed to the full extent that it can be, but at that point the voter has no opportunity to correct a mistake. Mistakes might include cross over voting during a Primary, or voting for more than the permissible number of candidates for an office. It should also be noted that during 2014 the media and various political parties referred to the "no -excuse" absentee voting as "early voting". The elimination of the need for an excuse was the only change that occurred in the process. All of the envelopes and processing steps