Absentee ballots for the ISD 200 School Board election are officially open. Ballots are available at the Dakota County Administration Building and Western Service Center with early voting beginning Oct. 17.
The ISD 200 special school board election is one of five odd-year elections this year in Dakota County.
While the election is gearing up for the public, Dakota County elections officials have been hard at work preparing ballots and making sure the elections are safe and secure.
Theres’s “not a tremendous amount of change,” between even-year and odd-year elections, said Michelle Blue, Director of Elections at Dakota County.
Preparing ballots, testing voting machines both internally and publicly, and maintaining voter records remains the same for elections big and small. The biggest difference is simply that fewer people know about smaller elections and therefore fewer people vote in them.
One way to make voting more accessible has been the expansion and proliferation of absentee ballots in Minnesota.
“Absentee ballots are big in Minnesota,” said Blue, estimating that 40% of votes cast in 2024 used them. That high water mark is partially an effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic, where their use was broadened.
“People are just more comfortable voting from their kitchen table,” said Blue as opposed to waiting in line on election day and not being sure who every candidate is or what races they can vote for.
Last year, Minnesota joined a handful of others states and Washington D.C. to allow voters to sign up to receive permanent absentee ballots. Eligible voters can sign up to be sent absentee ballots for each election without having to request ballots for each election individually.
This year Dakota County mailed out more than 6,000 ballots to residents who had signed up for the program.
Part of this program is meant to drive turnout for elections by make voting more accessible and raising awareness about smaller elections, said Blue.
The program has already worked to raise awareness about elections. Dakota County Elections has fielded calls from voters who had signed up for permanent absentee ballots asking why they had received a ballot, not knowing about the election in their area.
Dakota County has centralized absentee ballots for school board elections since 2023 when every district in the county signed a Joint Powers Agreement with the county.
“It’s just easier when you have a single entity doing all the training and systems,” said Blue. While districts were bound by state and federal election law, having ballots in the same place with the same staff working with the same systems is good for both transparency and accuracy.
Especially with record-breaking numbers of absentee ballots being cast, “most cities and towns don’t have the capacity to deal with that,” said Blue.

New voting equipment
Dakota County is also in the process of purchasing new voting equipment. Current Dakota County voting machines date back to 2015, with procurement of new machines planned since 2020.
For Blue, the difference between newer and older voting machines is similar to newer and older cell phones. Newer machines have shorter waiting times and can print results faster in addition to enhanced tamper-proof technology and encryption.
In broad strokes, however, voting machine “technology works identically. It may come down to preferences of the judges,” said Blue.
Dakota County election staff are expected to bring a recommendation before the county board by the end of the year on new voting equipment.

ISD 200 election
For voting in Hastings, the only race is the school board special election. While only two candidates are currently running for the position, Elaine Mikel-Mulder and Simone Rendon, three names will appear on the ballot.
Mikel-Mulder and Rendon’s names will appear alongside Marty Weber, a former candidate for the race who dropped out in September.
Weber announced he would be dropping from the race in a Facebook post on Sept. 18, saying “Due to recent personal issues relating to my life and mental health, I cannot give my full self to this campaign let alone the school board.”
By the time Weber dropped out, however, the withdrawal date had already passed meaning ballots for the election had already been printed.
For the special election, polling places might also have changed for residents from presidential election years. ISD 200 will have five polling places in November:
• Hope Lutheran Church
• Our Savior’s Lutheran Church
• United Methodist Church
• St. Philip’s Lutheran Church
• St. John’s Lutheran Church
To learn more about where you should go to vote, and to see sample ballots, visit mvotes.gov.
“The most important thing it to know you have options,” said Blue.