What if the polls close while I’m still in line? When will we get results? And your other election day questions, answered

CATHY WURZER: Election day is halfway over and millions have already cast their ballots during the early voting process or in person at the polls this morning. At a news briefing yesterday, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said he hopes for high voter turnout and low drama during this election-- so far, so good.

Secretary Simon is on the line right now. Thanks for taking the time.

STEVE SIMON: Thanks for having me. Happy election day.

CATHY WURZER: And to you as well, thank you. Say, is the machinery working well? Is the process smooth? What are the latest reports so far?

STEVE SIMON: Reports are really good. So far, I have reached out either in person or by phone with about 20 of our 87 counties and the folks who run elections there. And, overall, I have to say, things are looking really good. People are saying regardless of the weather, regardless of how soggy it may be, people are turning out in very large numbers.

In terms of other issues, they're small, sometimes technical, but almost immediately resolved in the polling places-- minimal drama, and so far, so good. Let's keep our fingers crossed. It's a long day, of course. But so far, it's going quite smoothly.

CATHY WURZER: Sometimes some of the tabulation machines get a little overheated. Are you having any problems with any of the machines breaking down?

STEVE SIMON: I wouldn't say even breaking down. I heard a couple of isolated incidents of a machine that wasn't working well at first. But then they went through the troubleshooting process and now it is. And voters are perfectly understanding with that. And there are always backups and resiliencies for that anyway. And so, nothing earth-shattering in that department.

CATHY WURZER: Say, remind folks, what they need to do-- what they need to bring with them to vote in person today?

STEVE SIMON: Well, it depends. If you are already registered to vote, then you don't have to bring anything with you in person. If, though, need to register or register, maybe you've registered once upon a time, but you had a name change or you moved or whatever, then you simply have to re-register there. And we have, of course, in Minnesota, and have had for 50 years, the ability to register in the polling place on election day.

In terms of what to bring, it boils down to this. You have to show that you are who you say you are and you live where you say you live. But, fortunately, in Minnesota, we have a long and flexible list of items that you could use for either or both of those.

So, for example, a driver's license with your current address on it would work. Sometimes people have a driver's license on it with a non-current address. Someplace they lived a year ago when they had the driver's license. In that instance, there are other things you could use. You could use a utility bill.

You could have a neighbor-- someone who lives in your precinct, who's a registered voter, could vouch for you, meaning they sign an oath. They identify themselves and their information, and then swear an oath that you really do live at that particular address. So there are a number of ways.

And if you go to our website, mnvotes.gov-- that's mn, like Minnesota, votes.gov, you can see there what the long list is of things that you can bring to the polling place that would satisfy either or both of those things that you have to show. You are who you say you are and you live where you say you live.

CATHY WURZER: Say, by the way, a little confusion, perhaps, if you have an absentee ballot that you haven't submitted yet, clearly don't want to mail it. But you also, as I understand, you can't drop it off at a polling place. Is that right?

STEVE SIMON: Yes. It's supposed to go to your local elections office. So whoever sent it to you, whoever's on that return address-- it could be a city, it could be a county, depending on where you live in Minnesota, bring it there. That's the location you have to bring it to. And you have to get it there by 8:00 PM, which also is the time that polls close.

CATHY WURZER: And, of course, if you are in line waiting to vote at 8:00, you can still vote.

STEVE SIMON: That's right. Under state law, it's very clear. If you're there at 8:00, they have to keep the polling place open to accommodate anyone who's already there.

CATHY WURZER: So speaking of state law, help me out here. I believe it was-- was it the 2023 session? I think that's right. A new law was passed to prevent the delay of certification of elections. Is that right? Can you talk about that. Because there are some people who are worried that there are reports of some board members across the country who are prepared to reject the results of their elections if they think that there's been some fishy behavior in the voting process.

STEVE SIMON: Yeah, absolutely. So we saw in our office what happened in the 2020 election in a number of states, particularly in the western part of our country, where you had some county commissioners refuse to certify election results. They would sit on the results, not based on a hearing or evidence or anything, but a whim or a hunch or media reports or whatever. And we took that very seriously.

And even though there was nothing like that in Minnesota, no hint of it, no inkling of it, same with this year, we, looking forward and playing the long game here-- decades and decades from now-- we can't have that kind of thing happen. So we passed a law last year, in 2023, that says-- and it's sort of a shame that we have to pass a law like this because it's an unremarkable thing, but we had to put it in the law.

And here's what the law now says. It says that the county must certify as the winner the candidate who got the most votes. That's not a very controversial thing to say. And it's too bad we had to put that in law. But we need that assurance. If someone got the most votes, they need to be certified as the winner.

Now, that doesn't mean a citizen or a group couldn't challenge the election results. But the place to do that is in court, after certification. That's always been our tradition in Minnesota.

So the courthouse doors are wide open. If anyone thinks that someone got it wrong or there was misconduct, of course, you can challenge an election. But you don't do it at the county level and hold up the rest of the state based on a whim or a hunch. And that's what was going on in other states-- again not Minnesota. But we now have the law that pretty much guarantees that can't and won't happen in Minnesota.

CATHY WURZER: Uh-huh. Say, by the way, a very smart journalist told me-- and I've always remembered this-- really none of the news today matters until the results start coming in. Don't read tea leaves from turnout. Ignore leaked exit polls. What election day truisms do you adhere to?

STEVE SIMON: Ha-ha. I think that's a really good on. No one's going to know based on what happens today. It's really, at the end of the day, that we're really looking at.

I'd say one truism that I think is important to get across, particularly in light of the last few years, is this. In Minnesota, our law says that all of our ballots, whether they're by mail or hand-delivered or voted in-person, they've got to be done ad in by 8:00 o'clock tonight. That's our rule.

That's our law, which means that we are very likely, by breakfast tomorrow morning, all of us in Minnesota, we're going to know all or substantially all of the results. But, the truism that we've learned over the last few years is, that's not the case in other states that have a different set of laws.

And I wouldn't want your listeners or anyone to jump to the unwarranted conclusion that just because they're counting ballots into Wednesday, Thursday, maybe Friday in some states, that's a sign that something went wrong or someone wasn't doing their job or there was misconduct. It's the opposite. They're following their law.

So that's a truism, that, unfortunately, for not so great reasons has arisen in the last few years. We just want to make sure people understand that part of the election, that in other states, again, not Minnesota, but in other states, it might take a while. And that's OK because their laws call for that.

CATHY WURZER: And, oh by the way, there could be some recounts. It's possible, especially on the legislative side of things. There are some pretty close races. But just to help listeners out real quickly here, what's the threshold for an automatic recount on the state level?

STEVE SIMON: So for a statewide election, that we all vote on, the threshold for an automatic recount is one quarter of 1%. It's a pretty slim margin. And for legislative races, it's one half of 1%. So that's the threshold there.

That means that taxpayers would pay for a recount. Now, anyone can ask for a recount if they're going to pay for it. So, hypothetically, if someone lost a statewide race by a million votes, they could have a recount as long as they're willing to pay that enormous cost.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you. That was Secretary of State Steve Simon joining us.