Ballot Requests Show Lots of Interest in Early Election Voting in Minnesota

It's pretty easy to vote in Minnesota. You can vote absentee and early vote by mail or in person.

“Voting season has begun and Minnesotans are clearly excited to make their voices heard,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon.

“There is still plenty of time left for folks to do their research on the candidates and issues that will appear on the November 5 ballot - and our website mnvotes.gov is here to help. At mnvotes.gov, voters can get registered, request an absentee ballot, view their sample ballot, find their polling place, and more.”

In its first six days, state election officials sent out 431,502 absentee and mail ballots. That's about three times as many as in 2016 when at this point in the election season, 150,488 mail ballots were sent out.

The pace is a slower than in the 2020 presidential election year when there was huge interest in voting by mail during the pandemic. 1,246,810 ballots were sent out in the first week of early voting in 2020.

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In Minnesota, there are three ways to vote.

BY MAIL
You can request to vote-by-mail by going to mnvotes.gov/absentee. There are around 150,000 Minnesotans who live in "mail-in precincts" and if you're in one of those precincts, you'll automatically get your ballot by mail if you're registered to vote.

Worried your ballot won't get counted? You can track your ballot at mnvotes.gov/trackmyballot.

Ballots need to be received by local election officials by 8 p.m., November 5th -- Election Day.

EARLY IN-PERSON
You can vote early at your local election office during business hours through Election Day, November 5th.

There are also some special early voting hours this year:

• Saturday, October 25 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Tuesday, October 29 open until 7 p.m.
• Saturday, November 2 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Sunday, November 3 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Monday, November 4 open until 5 p.m.

IN-PERSON ON ELECTION DAY
You can also vote in-person on Election Day. You can find where you vote by going to mnvotes.gov/pollfinder. Polls are open until 8 p.m. And as long as you're in line by 8 p.m., you can vote.

In Minnesota, you can register to vote at the polling place.