CROSSLAKE — The possibility of taking on absentee ballot administration is not on the next Crosslake City Council agenda, but the city clerk said she plans to ask members to make a decision Monday, March 11, after months of discussion.
Staffing needs remain a top concern — not only to meet the legal requirements to offer an absentee polling place but for the city overall, in the wake of the council’s firing of the longtime city administrator last month. The cost of taking on the task remains unclear, with estimates differing substantially. And details offered last month by the county elections administrator cast doubt on much of the information provided to the Council thus far by the residents pushing for the change.
Council members had not yet heard from Crow Wing County Administrative Services Director Deborah Erickson when they commenced a Feb. 12 special meeting on the topic. Erickson wasn’t set to speak at that meeting, either. Instead, Crosslake Mayor Dave Nevin immediately turned the floor over to Robin Sylvester, one of two residents who’ve publicly led the campaign for Crosslake to administer absentees.
The reasons for the change, according to Sylvester and Sonia Slack, are increased election security and emergency preparedness along with more trust and transparency.
“We feel like we’d have a more intimate process,” Sylvester said to open the meeting. “ ... Not that we’re saying that anything is not well run, but what we are asking is, let’s process it right here at home. You know the folks that are handling your absentee ballots and your full process, so that you have additional confidence that the election results that you all certify are accurate and true.”
Both women have raised concerns about election integrity several times in the intervening years since the 2020 presidential election, appearing before Crow Wing County commissioners as part of a group demanding recounts and audits. This latest Crosslake effort included a resolution based on a template created by the citizen group Anoka County Election Integrity Team, which nodded to Crosslake in a late January presentation in the city of Oak Grove.
The resolution templates are available for download at the website Project Minnesota, run by Erik van Mechelen, who lost the 2022 Republican primary for secretary of state. Van Mechelen is no stranger to Crow Wing County, where he’s documented citizen efforts seeking election audits, including in a self-published book arguing for a return to paper ballots.
Soon after Sylvester began outlining outstanding questions related to costs and acknowledged Erickson’s presence in the audience, the Council invited the elections head to the front of the room. Over the next hour, Erickson — who cited 30 years of experience in election administration and her past presidency of the Minnesota Association of County Officers — presented a significantly different picture than what members heard at three previous meetings, answering several questions of the council.
She noted inaccuracies in the characterizations of new election-related laws, such as one allowing automatic voter registration with driver’s license applications that Slack said would lead to undocumented people voting. In reality, the law would extend only to those applying for enhanced or REAL ID licenses, which both require citizenship documentation.
Erickson questioned the voting statistics given to the Council by Sylvester and Slack, saying they did not reflect official records. She noted the reliance on absentee ballot numbers during the 2020 election — an anomaly year because of the COVID-19 pandemic — presented a skewed picture.
She offered detailed insight into the time, equipment and cost commitments necessary to properly administer an election. The city would be required to purchase and use electronic voting equipment, Erickson said, which was previously described as a “gray area” by Slack.
“Utilization of electronic voting equipment is considered adoption of voting equipment, and your votes will still have to be counted by a tabulator,” Erickson said. “There is no option to have a hand count.”
She also said the city should consider 15 minutes per ballot as the bare minimum commitment of staff time, with an hour or more possible on the high end. Sylvester and Slack’s presentation included a five-minute estimate. Several tasks can only be performed by city staff members trained in elections, Erickson noted, and secure storage areas for ballots and voting equipment cannot be accessed by anyone else, including law enforcement and janitorial staff.
“I’ve heard reference to taking this back to the local level. Just for clarity, the city has never issued absentee ballots for a state or federal election,” Erickson said, adding this is the county’s statutory responsibility. “ ... If a voter were to come to the county office, they would still be told that they can vote absentee ballot at our counter. We cannot tell them they have to go to the city of Crosslake.
“It is another option that you would be providing for your residents.”
Erickson said any absentee ballots cast at the county historic courthouse would be counted and kept there, no matter where the voters live.
“Your numbers here will never match your total results. Because whatever voting is done at the county is going to be counted at the county,” she said.
These explanations from Erickson appeared to undercut the central premise of the citizen group’s request, which includes “seeking to secure custody of all Crosslake voter ballots.” At an informal town hall meeting a week earlier, Sylvester said they didn’t want to eliminate the option for people to vote in Brainerd, but the ballots should return to Crosslake. She suggested as a potential solution that the sheriff and a second party might drive to the courthouse to pick them up.
“We’re treading on new water [with] what does that look like,” Sylvester said. “The only way you’re going to really have full reconciliation is to have all ballots.”
“The statute says they have to give them to the governing ballot board, which will be here if we get this through,” Slack added.
But this isn’t an accurate interpretation of state law, according to Erickson, who explained the hierarchy of election administration both to the Council that night and in a later email to Slack.
“Since this is a state and federal election, the county is the responsible authority for absentee voting,” Erickson wrote in response to Slack’s Feb. 22 email seeking more clarity. “ ... While the city can elect to be a secondary location for absentee ballot administration, it does not relieve the county of the duties of absentee administration.”
Last week, Slack wrote another lengthy email to Erickson with more questions and requests for state statute citations, saying the election head’s responses conflicted with information Slack said she received from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office. She forwarded both of these emails to Crosslake City Clerk Char Nelson, saying she and Sylvester did not plan to present on the issue at the March meeting as originally planned.
“The length of time it’s taking is unfortunate, but the SOS office gave fundamentally different information than we got from the county last month,” Slack’s email stated. “So I have no choice but to ask for proof through statutes; I need to have confidence that what I convey to the council is factual. ...
“There’s no personal gain for me in this process — other than fulfilling my promise to research and provide information they (council) would need to make an informed decision.”
Reached Thursday, Erickson said she hasn’t responded again and feels she has provided all the information necessary for the Council to make its decision. The county has no authority to tell the city it can or cannot move forward with ballot administration, and Erickson said Crosslake has legal counsel it can consult, should council members have more questions about laws.
No matter the decision, the county must know the city’s plans by the beginning of May, when it is required to send a list of all polling locations for the upcoming primary and general elections to the secretary of state’s office.
Nelson said she thinks it’s time for the Council to move forward. In an email to Slack, Nelson wrote that whether Slack’s lingering questions are answered or not, staffing remains an overarching concern.
“I want to keep up on your emails, but it takes a lot of time to get through them. No matter what the cost comes out at, I think the issue is staff,” Nelson responded. “We would need 2 staff [members] here at all times, no matter which option you picked. They would not be able to get sick or be on vacation. That is the real issue that I see and that is what the council needs to think about.”
Late last year, the Council declared its intent to make the change in a 4-1 vote. Mayor Nevin has previously said he knows very little about election administration but supports the effort for local control.
“I will support anything that people want to do,” Nevin told KAXE in February. “And this always struck me as taking a little bit back, and I support that wholeheartedly.”
The Crosslake City Council will meet 7 p.m. Monday at Crosslake City Hall.
