At the Wednesday, March 12 ISD 200 School Board work session, the board discussed the upcoming special election to fill the empty seat on the board, and the interview process for seating a temporary member until that election.

Special Election
Last year, the school board voted to shift school board elections to even years to coincide with larger state and federal elections and thereby use the county’s election infrastructure and avoid footing the bill for setting up elections. Despite that, the school board once again has to contemplate setting up its own special election to fill the empty seat.
Board members discussed reducing the number of polling places for the election to a single location in order to save the district money when putting on the special election. This shift, down from five polling locations, would save the district an estimated $12,000.
“I’m really hesitant. I feel like its voter suppression,” said School Board Chair Carrie Tate referencing the difficultly for some of ISD 200’s residents in coming to a single voting place during the harvest season. “For some people in our district, it’s going to take them 40 minutes to come vote,” continued Tate.
Another issue of potential voter suppression discussed at the meeting was early voting and absentee ballots. While early voting is optional for special elections, polling places would accept absentee ballots opening another avenue for district residents who might have difficulty in getting to a single polling place.
In the 2023 special election for the school board, some 6,000 residents cast their votes across six sites. That volume of voters for a single location poses issues of long wait times.
Beyond the cost to the district of setting up polling places and staffing about 10 election staff per site, putting on an election poses huge amounts of staff time for the district.
“I end up managing all five,” polling locations, said Administrative Assistant Lyndee Humble. If the board decides to move forward with more than a single polling location, “it’s going to be a huge impact,” for staff said Humble.
In order to reduce the number of polling locations to one, the district would have to file a motion before a judge, a move made by the South St. Paul School District which was upheld.
The board asked for more clarification on the costs of staffing polling places, lawyer’s fees, and other election expenses to be discussed at the upcoming March 26 regular school board meeting.

Seating a temporary board member
Before the special election for the vacant school board seat, the board is able to appoint a board member. The board finalized the timeline for the interview process with applicants for the position.
Applications for the position should be sent to LynDee Humble at lhumble@isd200.org by March 21 and include the applicant’s name, address, phone number, email and a “Statement of why you are interested in serving on the Hastings Public School Board,” according to the application.
At the March 26 regular school board meeting the board will select the candidates to interview. Interviews will take place during the week of March 31 depending on board member and candidate availability.
After the interviews, the candidate will be selected at a special meeting on April 9 with that candidate seated at a May 14 special meeting. The appointed member will serve until Dec. 31, 2025 when they will be replaced with the winner of the special election.
Currently the district has four applications for the position.