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a y <br /> Mounds View Charter Commission <br /> 2401 Highway 10 <br /> Mounds View, Minnesota 55112 <br /> April 27, 1993 <br /> Minnesota House and Senate <br /> Capitol Building <br /> St. Paul, Minnesota <br /> Re: S.F. 1512 <br /> and H.F. 323 <br /> Dear House and Senate Members: <br /> We understand the above-referenced bills have passed out of <br /> committee and are now on the floor. <br /> As members of Mounds View's Charter Commission we have some <br /> grave concerns about the provisions of these bills. <br /> The provisions which would repeal Minn. Stat. §410.21, which <br /> gives home rule charters authority over nominations, primary <br /> elections, and elections for municipal office, would be devastating <br /> to the effectiveness of our charter in the City of Mounds View. At <br /> this time we are in the process of reviewing and amending the <br /> charter. We are taking a hard look at election procedures in the <br /> city to see if improvements could be made. In addition, those <br /> election provisions are a vital component of our charter-given <br /> rights of initiative, referendum and recall and charter amendment <br /> procedures. <br /> We understand that there is a provision for mail ballots for <br /> special elections outside of general election time. However, in <br /> the last general election when mail balloting was made more <br /> available to people, we found it to be very time-consuming to our <br /> election judges and therefore probably would be more costly than a <br /> special election. When people came in, to vote at the general <br /> election, the ballots were run through machines which went quickly. <br /> Shortly after the polls closed, the results of machine balloting <br /> were in. However, at least four more hours were required to <br /> process approximately 300 mailed-in ballots. Of those, <br /> approximately 30 were rejected because of problems with <br /> insufficient witnessing by another party. Even of those not <br /> rejected, several votes for city level officials were thrown out <br /> because the voters mistakenly voted for four instead of two <br /> candidates. When that happened for people at the polls, the <br /> machine signaled the mistake and the people had a chance to go back <br /> and correct their mistake. However, there was no such chance for <br /> the mail-in voters. <br /> In addition, the polls gave people who were not already <br /> registered in the city a chance to do so at the same time they <br /> voted. There was a record number of people in Mounds View <br />