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Voters head to the polls Tuesday

Subhead
Record early voting eases Election Day deadlines
Lead Summary
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By
Lori Sorenson

A line of voters wrapped around the corner of the building Tuesday morning when Jessica Mead opened the polling station in the Luverne High School gym on Election Day.
“The longest anyone had to wait was 15 minutes,” said Mead, who serves as Luverne’s election official. “Beyond that, it’s just been steady.”
Secretary of State Steve Simon said Tuesday’s voting at the polls was expected to go smoothly, considering record numbers of Minnesota voters had already cast ballots early.
In Rock County, record early voting mirrored the statewide picture. As of 5 p.m. Monday, election official Ashley Kurtz said her office had accepted a total of 2,817 absentee and mail ballots.
Considering there are 5,549 registered voters, that equates to a 51 percent voter turnout before Election Day polls even opened.
On Tuesday morning, Kurtz said she was hoping for a smooth Election Day, since so many ballots had already come in.
 
Secure process
She demonstrated how her staff processes ballots at the courthouse. 
They get scanned one at a time into a voting machine that records information on a jump drive. At the close of the polls, the drive gets transferred to a secure computer that’s not connected to the internet. “It’s just another secure step in the process,” Kurtz said.
That computer then generates a jump drive that gets uploaded to the Minnesota Secretary of State Office where results are posted online at sos.mn.us.
Kurtz said her office has been helping to register new voters, many of them young people and first-time voters.
 
Right and responsibility
Luverne’s Dillon Dump, a 2020 LHS graduate, was among dozens of voters participating in the polling station in the high school gym. He said he was looking forward to voting.
“It’s a big decision,” he said. “I’m older now and I understand why politics are so important. … We’re the people who vote for the ones we want at the top.”
He said he cast his ballot for third-party candidates that support legalizing marijuana. 
“There are so many worse people that we could be prosecuting,” he said. “There are so many other ways we could direct resources than the war on drugs, especially marijuana.”
At the Luverne Post Office Tuesday morning, Postmaster Clint Roozenboom said mail ballots haven’t created a strain on his staff. 
“They’ve just been nice and steady,” he said. “If anything, it’s been the extra political advertising.”
 
Postal Service role
He and his staff — and the entire Postal Service — are committed to making sure all ballots are delivered.
“We’re all taking it very seriously,” he said. “We are going to get every single one to where it needs to go.”
For example, if a Nobles County ballot ends up in the Rock County mail, Roozenboom said his office will redirect it. 
He said a clerk in one of his remotely managed Post Offices called Tuesday morning to report that a customer just handed in her a ballot for Sioux County IA.
“I then immediately contacted the postmaster in Orange City where the county seat is located and we worked together to deliver the ballot to the county’s auditor-treasurer’s office,” Roozenboom said. 
“Same-day service. That one ballot may or may not make a difference in the outcome of the election, but the Postal Service understands the value of every vote and is proud to provide the extra services needed to maintain the trust we have from our customers.”
Also, on Tuesday his staff made an extra run to Windom to bring back local mail, and they emptied local drop boxes at 5 p.m. (rather than the final 11:45 pickup).
The polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday, after the Star Herald’s Tuesday afternoon press run. See the Star Herald website, www.star-herald.com, and Facebook page for updates as results come in through the night and into the following days.

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