It is a constant year-round process.”

For more information about Dakota County Elections, visit https://www.co.dakota.mn.us/Government/VotingElections/Pages/default.aspx

Locked away in a windowless room on the lowest levels of the Dakota County Government Center, behind secure doors and a chain link fence, under the constant supervision of security cameras and under strict rules of access is not some long forgotten bullion nor time-worn relic, but Dakota County’s voting machines. This level of security, scrutiny, redundancy, and diligence is easy to miss.
It is easy to wander into a voting booth come November, get a ballot, cast your vote and not spare a glancing thought to the thousands of hours of work that went into creating such a frictionless voting experience. Like so many things in the modern world, that ease of experience is by design: the easier it is for the population to securely vote, the more people do so. As more public thought is placed on voting and voting systems, that ease of experience is all too often mistaken for lack of oversight. Little could be farther from the truth.
Election departments across the country are not minor branches of government inactive until a few months before an election.
“It is a constant year-round process,” said Michelle Blue, Director of Dakota County Elections.
2024, in addition to being a presidential election year, only had three months where elections were not held in Dakota County.
Each and every one of those elections requires a fastidious amount of testing, tracking and security from ordering and editing ballots to testing voting machines to providing access via absentee ballots and specialized equipment for those who need it. All that work starts with who is on the ticket.

Ballots
Deciding who is on a ballot and waiting for the time to pass for candidates to withdraw is the main factor that kicks off the usual rumblings of elections departments into “super high gear,” says Blue. Local nonpartisan elections like school boards and city councils begin much closer to election day than higher profile elections like that for the office of President of the United States. Because of that timeline, finalizing exactly who is on a ballot normally ends up waiting on those smaller elections, even in years with late-elections shakeups like President Joe Biden stepping out of race in late July.
Once the candidates are selected, ballots are scrutinized to make sure that names are spelled correctly, that candidates are labeled as the correct party and that races are in the correct order. This review process involves officials across governmental bodies like cities and counties as well as a legal review for each precinct across the county.
In Dakota County, finalized ballots are currently expected to be received in early September.

Testing voting machines
After receiving finalized ballots, testing voting machines can truly begin. Each voting machine receives a “wide variety of diligence,” before elections says Blue. Machines are tested for issues within the machine like lack of ink and improper display then for their ability to accurately count votes. Voting machines are designed to both be able to recognize when parts of a ballot are left empty, as well as when too many candidates are selected. For races like school board elections where multiple candidates are able to be chosen, machines are able to both detect that multiple candidates are chosen as well as the fact that multiple selections are allowed for that race.
Once ballots are finalized, a series of prefilled sample ballots are run through voting machines. The tabulations from the machine are then compared to the preset amounts on those sample ballots so that officials can be sure that voting machines can accurately count votes. This method allows Blue to “know for a fact that it tabulated that amount correctly.”
These tests aren’t just for county officials either. A series of public tests for voting machines takes place before an election. For the Aug. 13 primary, public testing of voting machines took place from Aug. 7-9 in the Dakota County Elections office.
“Some people don’t understand the rigorous level of testing for ballots as well as the publicly facing aspect of it,” said Blue.
Visitors and residents are encouraged to come view these public tests which often play out unattended.
Once testing is complete, machines are locked so that they cannot be tampered with and then tested again the morning of election day to ensure continued accuracy of tabulations.

Election rosters
In order to ensure that voters are who they say they are, as well as to ensure that they aren’t able to vote multiple times in different precincts, the state uses digital election rosters composed of registered voters. When going to vote, election judges check voter’s personal details against a dynamic list of registered voters.
As voters vote throughout the course of election day, their names are crossed off that list so that were someone to attempt to vote at a different precinct, election judges would be able to see that that person had already cast a vote.

Voter access
Part of the reason elections are so time intensive and expensive to hold is because of state and federal mandates for accessibility. Absentee ballot access was widely expanded nationally as well as in Minnesota during the COVID-19 Pandemic and has become an increasingly popular way to vote since 2020.
Starting June 1 of this year, Minnesota changed its policy on absentee ballots to allow voters to be automatically sent an absentee ballot before every election if they so choose. Minnesota had previously allowed no-excuse absentee ballots since 2014, allowing voters to receive an absentee ballot without the need of providing a reason.
Absentee ballots are accepted 46 days before an election and are held until 19 days before an election. Nineteen days before an election, absentee ballots are removed from their envelope so that they are anonymous. Only after they are anonymous do election judges review them and insert them into ballot counters.
As seen in the 2020 election, the sheer volume of absentee ballots can take days to count which is why Minnesota allows election judges to begin this process 19 days before the election. Many other states like Alabama, Mississippi, and New Jersey, however, have laws barring processing absentee ballots before election day which is why counting absentee ballots can last days after the election.
Beyond absentee ballots, Dakota County showcases the various ways elections have become more inclusive and available to the public. To start, the government building offers extended hours across evenings and weekends for early voting as well as signage in the three most spoken non-English languages in the district, Spanish, Hmong, and Somali, with resources available for other languages spoken in Dakota County like Vietnamese and Russian. Voting machines themselves are available in large print, in audio instructions, high contrast, and via keypad to account for those that need them.

Community Outreach and Elections
In recent years, pubic interest has increasingly shifted towards voting processes. According to a recent PEW poll in July of this year, six in 10 Americans believe the 2024 election will be conducted fairly and accurately, although that number changes drastically across party lines with 77% of Democrats and 47% of Republicans believing the election will be conducted fairly and accurately.
For Dakota County Election officials like Blue, that fall in confidence has mostly translated into more interest in the voting process: “Naturally there are just more questions about elections. That’s just part of the landscape.”
For many of the public-facing demonstrations of accuracy, “prior to 2020, I can’t tell you how many times I had to run around the building scraping up viewers,” said Blue.
Dakota County has been working to emphasize the security and accuracy of its elections in part by a short series of videos that highlight the rigor that goes into ensuring elections are free and fair. The first video was released July 31, 2024 and highlights voting machine testing.
“We know our ballots are safe and secure and we want to be able to show people that,” said Blue.
For more information about Dakota County Elections, visit https://www.co.dakota.mn.us/Government/VotingElections/Pages/default.aspx