Minutes - Council Work Session - 05/14/2024

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Councilmember Olson noted that Congressional District lines cross city lines so they would not necessarily be guaranteed to have any post-election reviews in the City. Councilmember Specht added that District 3 hits other cities than just Ramsey. City Clerk Schmidt asked what the Council would like to do about the paper rosters. Councilmember Riley asked if it is a City only election if they can do paper rosters, but if the County is involved then they have to do an electronic roster. City Clerk Schmidt said this is correct. She said the County does allow paper rosters as a backup if the electronics were to not be working. She shared that paper rosters can be a concern with early voting as it would be hard to keep track of early voting and alert polling locations when someone voted early. She added that the electronic ballots are helpful as there is no way that someone could vote twice on an electronic roster as the system logs the voter's information to ensure they cannot vote twice. City Attorney Knaak noted that the electronic rosters are great for fraud prevention. He explained that there has been ongoing progress with technology and the accuracy of voting. He said there are a lot of people who do not feel very comfortable about the voting process so the more the City can do to increase the comfort level the better even though it will cost more money and be more work. Councilmember Riley asked if they are granted authority for post-election reviews from the County what a cost estimate would be for this additional work. City Clerk Schmidt said if the County allows them to do more post-election reviews, then it will still take place at the County and they would only need to pay the election judges that would go to the County to count the ballots. She added that it would also depend on how many races they were counting. City Administrator Hagen asked if they would only want to do this for City Council races or all races. Councilmember Riley said they should do them on all races. Councilmember Musgrove asked what would happen if someone arrived to vote and they were told that they already voted when they actually had not voted already. City Attorney Knaak explained that when a situation like this happens, the election judges are supposed to take this person's ballot and set it aside as a provisional vote and they will then have to make the determination on whether or not this person has already voted. City Administrator Hagen said they would not be able to pull the original vote; however, when a ballot goes in, there is information recorded on who cast a ballot. He explained that they can go back and see if a ballot was applied incorrectly. He said there would be a way to correct this. City Council Work Session/May 14, 2024 Page 9 of 10