30% of registered voters cast early ballots in Minneapolis as access increases statewide

For the first time in 2024, voting locations must be open in every Minnesota county on the two Saturdays and one Sunday before Election Day during statewide election years.

For several voters in Minneapolis, hitting the polls on the weekend was a first.

“No. No, never voted on a Sunday,” Charles Coleman said after casting his ballot.

“No, actually in the previous election, I was still in college, so I had an absentee ballot sent my way and voted from my college bedroom,” Lydia Prior said.

“I think that there’s something really special about going out and physically voting in person,” she added.

“I work six days a week, so Sundays is perfect,” said Andre Wylie.

Wylie said he’s always had to vote “super early” before work on Election Day but was thankful for the option to vote in person on an off day.

“I feel like it’s more validating, you know, and it’s just more empowering personally. And then, also ancestrally speaking, I feel like we fought for this, so I feel like it’s only right,” Wylie shared.

Minneapolis Director of Elections and Voter Services Katie Smith said, barring the unique pandemic election in 2020, the number of ballots cast before Election Day in the city this year has surpassed previous presidential elections.

“We’ve had over 75,000 people already cast a ballot in this general election,” Smith said. “That’s just about a 30% turnout, so far, of current registered voters.

Based on the numbers she provided on Friday afternoon compared to Sunday, nearly 10,000 of those ballots were cast over the weekend.

Statewide, Minnesota already had the highest voter turnout in the country at 80%, said Hamline University political science professor David Schultz, adding that it could end up even higher this year.

“The question will become now… with all these new, expanded voting opportunities that really occurred, even since four years ago, do we actually break the 80% mark?” Schultz said. “We’ve not done that yet, but we’re getting very close.”

Schultz said the last decade has been trending toward increased voting options, and he says it’s brought more women — particularly working mothers — to the polls in droves.

“We’ve gone from where males, men are the majority of the voters, to where now at the national level, women are about 54% of the electorate, so this has dramatically benefited women in very, very important ways,” he said.

The same early voting sites in Minneapolis are open until 5:00 p.m. on Monday too, which is also required in every county under the new law. See those statewide locations by county here.

Smith also noted that it’s likely too late as of Sunday to send a mail-in ballot by mail. Instead, bring it to an absentee ballot drop-off location before the polls close on Election Day to ensure it’s counted, she said. For Minneapolis voters, that means either dropping ballots off at the Hennepin County Government Center or the city’s Elections and Voter Services office.