House repasses omnibus elections bill

A package of tweaks to the way Minnesota administers its elections to public office is headed to Gov. Mark Dayton after the House repassed the conference committee report on HF840/SF455* 131-0 late Sunday night.

Sponsored by Rep. Tim Sanders (R-Blaine) and Sen. Katie Sieben (DFL-Newport), the bill includes dozens of tweaks to state election laws that govern absentee balloting, recounts, voter registration and election administration. The Senate on Sunday repassed the bill 65-0.

Some key provisions in the bill would:

• remove a section of law that requires county attorneys to automatically proceed with prosecutions of alleged voter fraud if a complaint or evidence is brought forward, instead allowing them to proceed with investigations and prosecutions according to normal standards of law;
• allow statutory cities to set their own candidate filing fees (a Senate measure adopted in conference committee, however, caps that fee);
• include Minnesota National Guard members under special voting procedures for members of the military and other citizens residing overseas;
• allow the children of residents living permanently overseas to vote in Minnesota elections if a parent resided in the state prior to leaving the country;
• conform technical aspects of existing election law to general state statute requiring Minnesota’s presidential electors to the Electoral College to cast their vote for president and vice-president for the candidates to whom they are pledged;
• update language relating to voting booths and ballot marking procedure;
• allow absentee voters to return their own ballot, in person, on Election Day.
• provide a more specific deadline for candidates to make a written request for a publicly-funded recount in a federal or state election. Current law requires a request be made within 48 hours of the election results being canvassed; that would be changed to a deadline of 5 p.m. on the second day after the canvass.
• change policy governing vacancies in contests for partisan office by not opening a new filing period if a candidate withdraws during the 48-hour withdrawal period after filing for office;
• permit high school students to serve as trainee election judges in any county adjacent to their home county, not just the county in which they live; and
• clarify that the existing right of voters to take time off from work to cast a ballot extends to all regularly-scheduled elections, including local contests.

It also includes a half-dozen provisions adopted in conference committee. Those adopted include measures that would:

• establish a task force to study preparations for potential emergencies prior to an Election Day;
• establish school board recall language; and
• prohibit townships from holding special elections on the date of a town’s annual meeting.

Both sponsors called the bill “non-controversial,” though Sieben expressed disappointment that a pair of election reforms — early voting and the restoration of felon voter rights — didn’t make it into an omnibus election package this year.

Those items, she said, “fell out of this proposal in the interest of getting something together at this late hour.”