My meeting with Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Blue Earth County elections official Patty O'Connor provided some insights in how things may be different next time you go to the ballot box.
Early voting is in the proposed election reform bill. This would allow anyone to vote 15 days early, not just absentee. Officials note some 300,000 people in Minnesota voted "absentee" in the last election, but many were really "early voters" just checking one of the absentee reasons to work around the law.
Online voter registration may be coming to a computer near you. This would automate the process and bit and check against your license. In fact, they're thinking about automatically registering you to vote when you have your license updated, unless you opt out or are some other way illegal.
Count the absentee ballots at the court house instead of driving them to each precinct. This is how ballots might get lost in the transport. Also, harried election judges at the precinct wouldn't have to worry about counting absentee. Also puts the election officials who work with the law regularly in charge of qualifying, disqualifying absentee ballots.
A lot of the reform seems to make sense to me, but Ritchie says it's always a challenge getting elected officials to vote to change something they have been very comfortable with for years.
Stay tuned.
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