Scott County reviews election administration, pushes statutory fixes for absentee voting and results reporting

On July 8, 2025, the Scott County Board of Commissioners heard a detailed briefing on local election administration from county staff, municipal clerks and the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State, focusing on absentee ballot procedures, staffing and election-night results reporting.

The panel—led by Julie Hansen, Property and Customer Service Manager for Scott County; Heidi Simon, City Clerk of Prior Lake; and Paul Linnell, Director of Elections at the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State—said recent legislative changes codified several procedural safeguards but did not add punitive enforcement for errors, and outlined additional changes they would seek next session.

County officials said the statute now codifies routine reconciliation steps—matching absentee applications, ballots and system records—but that lawmakers removed proposed punitive measures before the bill passed. "Procedure wise, it's in there, but no, nothing more punitive," Hansen said, summarizing the final bill.

Officials listed several priority changes they plan to advocate to reduce rejected ballots and staff strain. Those include: establishing a firm deadline for absentee ballot applications (panelists discussed a 7-day cutoff before Election Day as one option); shortening the absentee-voting window from 46 days to 28 days to reduce prolonged staffing demands; clarifying that secrecy envelopes returned with ballots must be returned to election officials; and requiring online absentee applicants to submit both a Minnesota drivers-license number and the last four digits of their Social Security number to reduce ID-number mismatches.

"If we could shorten that time period ... that would give us a little bit more time on the front end to ensure that all of the testing, the programming, the filing, everything that has to be done ... could actually get done," Hansen said, describing long "80‑hundred‑hour" stretches for staff during the last cycle. Heidi Simon said her deputy clerk logged more than 300 overtime hours during three election cycles last year.

The panel also described operational changes made in recent years. Counties have experimented with staffed ballot drop-off locations and added weekend hours; Scott County added a second Saturday and a Sunday 9 a.m.–3 p.m. window before the most recent election. Officials suggested ending in-person absentee hours earlier on the Monday before Election Day—recommending a 3 p.m. cutoff for administrative processing even while allowing voters in line to cast ballots.

Recruitment of student election judges received positive attention. "We made it part of their curriculum," Simon said of a Prior Lake–Savage high school partnership; the city reported about 65 student participants between the two cities in the fall cycle and said seniors performed well on technology and voter interaction.

Panelists described continuing difficulty staffing party‑balanced absentee ballot boards. A recent Minnesota Supreme Court case clarified that some ballot-board functions require party-balanced judges and raised questions about what it means to "exhaust" a party list when appointing judges. "We can reach out to all of these folks ... and we're very clear in our email ... but it's really hard to find folks that have that kind of availability," Hansen said, noting party-list returns to counties can be lopsided.

Results reporting on election night also drew sustained discussion. Officials said partial uploads incorrectly displayed as "complete" results in at least one jurisdiction during the last cycle. Paul Linnell said the state is exploring requirements and best practices for counties to validate uploads before public release and for more uniform expectations across counties while preserving needed flexibility. "The priority always being accuracy over speed," Linnell said.

Panelists urged more standardized training, more robust pre-election testing of results‑reporting systems, and continued collaboration between the Secretary of State's office, counties and municipalities to reduce errors that drive late reporting and ballot rejections.

The county indicated several next steps: continue collaboration with municipal clerks and the Secretary of State on statutory clarifications, pursue targeted outreach and partnerships with high schools for student judges, and participate in statewide work on results‑reporting testing and best practices. Officials said they will continue to present legislative recommendations to county leadership and partner cities ahead of the 2026 session.

The presentation followed a written narrative and data packet county staff provided to the board; commissioners asked staff to keep partners and the public informed about any proposed statutory changes and about election‑administration timelines and testing plans going into the next election cycle.