New Olmsted County election office ready for action

While the new office was in the works long before social distancing became a buzzword, the relocation to 2117 Campus Drive SE provides enough space to give voters safe distance as they register and cast their ballots.

“We’re limiting contact,” the director of Olmsted County’s property records and licensing operations, which includes election oversight, said of the process that moves voters through the building in a single direction.

He said the new space, which has been planned since it was announced that Rochester’s Building Safety operations would leave the building, provides a huge advantage to the former location on the edge of Graham Park, which had people crowding stairwells when lines got long.

Krupski said he doesn’t expect lines to be as long as those seen in previous years.

Even before COVID-19 spurred concerns about large gatherings, he said local election officials were anticipating 33 percent of voters would choose to complete absentee ballots this year, up from 25 percent in 2018.

Now, Krupski said the estimate is closer to 50 percent.

“We are on track for it,” said elections manager Katie Smith, referring to the number of applications received in the days before absentee ballots could be sent out.

The increased activity is likely fueled by the county’s decision to send every registered voter an application earlier this month.

To work with the increased number of requests, as well as the anticipated rise in registrations and early voting, the absentee voting center has added 17 provisional employees to its permanent staff of three.

While more people will likely seek to mail their ballots between Friday and the Aug. 11 primary, Smith and Krupski said the new absentee voting office provides a variety of other options that eliminate the need to go to polls on Election Day.

While voters can go through the registration and voting process from start to finish in the center, they can also place completed ballots in a brightly marked dropbox, which will be located near the main entrance.

“Weather permitting, we’ll have it out where they can drive by,” Smith said, adding that staff will be monitoring the box.

Voters unable to make it into the building also also have the option for curbside voting throughout the 46 days,

Signs marking the curbside voting location include a phone number to contact election officials. All curbside voting will be conducted with two staff election judges, and voters don’t need a ballot in advance.

“We can register as well,” Smith said. “It just needs to be a second form they fill out.”

As Election Day nears, voters will also have the opportunity to feed their ballots directly into a voting machine.

The direct voting option starts a week before the Aug. 11 primary election and will occur in the absentee voting office, as well as the city-county Government Center, 151 Fourth St. SE.

Once the direct voting option is available, Krupski said he expects the new center will see an increase in activity.

“It’s usually the last three days that are really busy,” he said.