Flood of Dropped off Ballots in Stearns County [PODCAST]

Stearns County Division Director for Service Centers and Elections Dave Walz joined me on WJON today.  He says more than 300 ballots were dropped off at their Stearns County West drop off site in Waite Park Friday alone.  Walz says more than 7,000 ballots have been dropped off to this point with approximately 41% of those who voted 4 years ago already voting.  He says Stearns County is one of the counties with the highest voter turnout in the state with around 80% of eligible voters voting.  The state of Minnesota is typically one of the best in the nation in voter turnout with around 70%.

Walz says all of the votes are counted electronically in the county and he says electronic counting is extremely accurate.  He says counting by hand only happens in recount situations which happens infrequently.  Walz expects mailed in ballots to come in after election night with many coming in from Wednesday-Friday this week.  He says they will be placed in a separate location but will be counted.  The Presidential race is the only race where those ballots are in legal question right now.  Walz expects all the ballots that come in after 8pm Tuesday to be counted and reported with the Presidential race being the one possible exception.

Walz expects to report the votes from election day and those that arrives before election day and on the day of to be reported Tuesday night with some additional Tuesday numbers coming in Wednesday morning depending on how long it takes for the votes to be counted.