Lines formed at Minneapolis early voting locations on Friday afternoon. Municipalities around the state are expecting a weekend surge of voting ahead of Election Day on Tuesday.

“We’re staffed up and ready, and we’re excited,” said Katie Smith, the director of Elections and Voter Services for Minneapolis. “There’s a good energy in the air.”

The city has four permanent locations for early voting, which are expected to be busy until Election Day. Pop-ups this year also allowed people to cast a ballot in their neighborhood.

“It was real quick and painless,” said Nathaniel Allin-Churchill, who voted at Grace-Trinity Community Church on Friday. “I think it’s great. It’s creating more opportunity for people to vote as quickly and as easily as possible.”

The pop-up at the church marked the final one-day early voting event for the city. There have been 11 events since mid-October, including at Capri Theater and Minneapolis Institute of Art.

“They’ve been really great,” said Smith. “We’ve gotten a lot of really positive feedback.”

According to Smith, the pop-ups are new this year as a result of a 2023 law change.

“That allows us to have voting locations that aren’t the same dates, times, hours as our main locations,” she explained.

The historic voting legislation also expanded early voting hours on the two weekends before statewide general elections.

“From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, voting is available in all 87 counties in person,” said Secretary of State Steve Simon. “Why not just have one last burst of opportunity to vote, make sure it’s in the middle of the day on a Saturday, on a Sunday.”

According to Simon, voter turnout is already ahead of the last pre-pandemic presidential election in 2016.

“We’re running two to one, more than two to one,” he said. “I think we’re going to see some sort of surge in the last couple of days here.”

A quarter of Minneapolis voters, which is about 65,000 people, have cast a ballot so far.

“This is high turnout,” said Smith.

She recommends voters who planned to mail a ballot drop it off instead because it likely won’t make it in time through the mail.