State voter Registration and election Preparation

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1 MINNESOTA BALLOT BULLETIN July, 2000 Robin Anthony and Pat Shier Editors Greetings from the Secretary of State s Office! With summer upon us, it is fair season, and I m sure many of you are enjoying the corn dogs, carnival rides, and agriculture displays. For our part, we are planning to have a booth at the ultimate Minnesota get-together, the State Fair. Our booth will be in the Education Building, space number 17. We will be open from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily. We expect most of the inquiries at our booth to be about the upcoming elections, and we ll emphasize voter registration and give people the opportunity to complete voter registration cards right there. We ll also distribute a variety of materials, including the State Legislative Manual, also known as the blue book. It would be great to see you at the Fair, so if you re in town for it, please stop by to say hello. Also, if you re interested in volunteering to work in our booth for some time, you re welcome to do so it would be great to have your company just let us know. If you have any ideas about what materials it would be helpful to distribute at the State Fair, please call us with your suggestions. I hope you re having a nice summer, and we ll look forward to working with you on the upcoming elections. Thank you, again, for all of your great work in serving our state. Mary Kiffmeyer Secretary of State

2 that is coming. Of course, there are some limits: there are only so many dollars available, so we may not be able to afford every feature you can think of. Likewise, there are some features that were available when MAPPER was acquired in 1987 that may not have survived all the revolutionary changes in computer technology in the years since then. THE VIEW FROM THE WIDOW'S WALK... If you have ever visited a New England fishing town, or seen these towns in movies like The Perfect Storm, you probably have heard of a Widow s Walk. A Widow s Walk is a platform built on the roof of many homes near the Atlantic Ocean so that families of fishermen can look far out to sea, towards the horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of their ships coming back in. There was always a celebration when someone who had waited a long time to see the masts of a ship finally saw that ship headed into port. With all of excitement and work that must be done today to make our elections go well in September and November, it is important to take just a moment to look farther ahead towards a very important change coming up. In April 2001 (just nine months from now) we are planning to replace the existing MAPPER statewide voter registration system with a totally new voter registration system with up-to-the-minute technology. We have already received proposals from vendors who wish to supply this new system and assist with its installation. During the next few weeks we will be negotiating with the successful vendor(s) to develop a contract specifying how this new system will be installed and what features it must contain. As you may remember from the MACO meeting at Grand Rapids, a county user group has been in place for some time now to advise and assist with our transition to this new voter registration system. County user group members helped us develop the Request for Proposals, and some members assisted with evaluating vendor responses. There may not be many quiet moments during the weeks ahead, but please try to take some time when you can to consider what features you like best about the current MAPPER system, and what whistles and bells you really wish you could have in the new system But please take just a moment to think about what would make our statewide voter registration system more efficient, and easier to use, and then share your thoughts with members of the county user group: Mary Kay Kes; Gary Poser, Linda Becker, Lynn Boraas, Bob Bruns, Marge Christianson, Michelle DesJardin, Virginia Janson, Sandy Jordan, Michelle Richter, Millie Schroeder, and Cindy Schultz. Your participation now will help guarantee that when your ship comes in during April of next year, you can join in the celebration of the progress that we ve made together in obtaining the best possible statewide voter registration system. Brad King Director of Elections PRECINCT FINDER & POLLING PLACE LOOK-UP UPDATE Just a reminder to all counties. Please make sure that your precinct finders and polling place look-ups in Mapper are updated. The precinct finder and the polling place look-up in the voter registration system where we receive the information from the Polling Place Search Function located on our web site. This is a service for all voters as well as election officials to eliminate some of those many phone calls. If your precinct finder or polling place look-up is not up-to-date, the Polling Place Search Function will reflect that. The Secretary of State s Office plans to update this on a monthly basis. The last update by Northstar was May 10, We have entered all changes made until July 12, 2000, but the Polling Place Search Function does not yet reflect those changes. August 1 st will be the last date for you to make corrections before the election. By August 8 th the Polling Place Search Function will reflect all of your changes. This will be the LAST update before the Primary Election. 2

3 PILOT 2000 MASTER LISTS AND ROSTERS This fall Anoka, Hennepin, and Washington Counties will be piloting a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) approach to obtaining their rosters and master lists. These counties will be able to receive these lists electronically, and will be able to print them in their respective offices. After we evaluate this pilot, we may implement this statewide. A big thank you to these counties for assisting us with this project. GIVE US THE FEEDBACK!!!! BALLOT BULLETIN As you all are aware of, our office has generated a series of election guides crafted for Auditors, City Clerks, Town Clerks, School District Clerks and Election Judges. They are fabulous and way over due. However, they probably are not perfect. Please continue to supply us feedback on these manuals on a regular basis. Whether it is by phone call, system message, , mail, or in person, we value your experience and opinions. This is just a start to a wonderful partnership. WHO ARE THOSE FOLKS ANSWERING THE PHONE ANYWAY? INTRODUCTION OF THE HELP DESK STAFF The Helpdesk staff members provide Office of the Secretary of State (OSS) related support to our County users, Direct Access customers, government agencies and internal OSS staff related. The types of issues and questions they address, just to name a few, include: Communications and connectivity to OSS systems UCC, VR and ENR application questions and processes State provided equipment support Production of OSS data requests such as BS tapes and VR orders Production of Rosters The staff members include: Murriel (Logan) Watson the helpdesk senior lead. She has been with the office since 1996, and positioned at the helpdesk since Feb Gerry Brakke has been with the office, and positioned at the helpdesk since September of Gerry has complimented the helpdesk with his technical support skills. Sharon Satnik has been with the office since December of Sharon provides backup helpdesk and mainframe operator support. Sharon s primary responsibility is the production of all OSS data orders, rosters, lists and labels. Help Desk! (651) A BIG THANKS Thanks to Diane Teff from Anoka County, and Kevin Boyle from Hennepin County in assisting the Secretary of State s Office with candidate office code testing. We really appreciate your assistance! ELECTION DIVISION ON THE ROAD! Mike McCarthy and Robin Anthony went on the road last week traveling a few hundred miles to administer election training at three Township Conferences. (Owatonna, Marshall, and St. Cloud.) This training was meant to support Auditors with the required training for the Township Clerk certification program as stated in the new training rules. However, it was made clear that Township Clerks still need to meet with their Auditors to obtain training. In addition to the new training requirements, please see the statute. 204B.28 Clerks; election supplies; duties. Subdivision 1. Meeting with election officials. At least 12 weeks before each regularly scheduled general election, each county auditor shall conduct a meeting with local election officials to review the procedures for the election. Along with the training, we had the opportunity to visit 5 counties and meet with 8 County Auditors. We want to thank: Laura Ihrke, Steele County Auditor; Joan Manthe, Waseca County Auditor; Paula Van Overbeke, Lyon County Auditor; Sam Modderman, Kandiyohi County Auditor; Larry Jacobs, Renville County Auditor; Byron Giese, Swift County Auditor; and Mary Pischke, Pope County Auditor; as well as other county officials who met with us. These folks took time out of their busy day to meet with us having an information discussion of where we ve been, where we are today, and where we want to go. We plan to do this again the first week in August when the Elections Division trains Township Clerks in Fergus Falls, Thief River Falls, and Grand Rapids. 3

4 ELECTION NIGHT REPORTING UPDATE: Good news!!! For counties who used modems to report election night results in the past, there will be no hardware setup, no modems, no busy signals, no scripts, and no delay! This year we want you to start uploading the results as YOU get it. Do not wait until all your precincts are in. Please respond to our survey regarding these options. Options to transfer: #1: NEW! A web enabled File Transfer Protocol (FTP) method that will allow the counties to access a web page, enter or browse for the file name and file location, and upload the candidate counties via the web. More information to follow. Work Station Requirement: Intenet Explorer 4 or higher, Netscape 4 or higher, Internet Access #2: NEW! Status Quo using the Internet. A web enabled front end that will allow manual entry counties to use the Election Night Reporting MAPPER programs to enter candidate counts and other Election Night Reporting function. (This is a great option for manual counties if they have access to the Internet. It means that you can have multiple staff doing the entry at any PC that has Internet access at no additional cost.) Work Station Requirement: Internet Explorer 4 or higher, Netscape 4 or higher, Internet Connection. #3: Status Quo! Enter candidate counts in the MAP- PER manually. Work Station Requirement: TCP/IP Protocol, Info Connect or equivalent emulation software, Election Night Reporting MAPPER. More information will be forthcoming. Municipal clerk also means clerk of the school district who is authorized or required to administer the provisions of sections 203B.04 to 203B.15, as provided in section 203B.05 for a school district election not held on the same day as a statewide election. Question: What is the definition of a Healthcare facility? Answer: A hospital residential treatment center, or nursing home. MEET OUR NEW CONSULTANT, MONICA CROCKER Monica Crocker replaces Deb Varner as the Project Management Consultant for the Voter Registration System. She brings 10 years of managing government implementation projects to this effort. She has extensive experience overseeing vendor selection and performance. Ms Crocker sees her role on this project as being responsible for overcoming barriers to timely and successful completion of the project. Her most recent project was managing the implementation of an imaging system for Minnesota Public Employees Retirement Association. A warm welcome to Monica and a big thank you to Deb Varner for all her expertise and assistance. YOU MUST BE 18 TO VOTE!!! Beginning about August 1 st you will see a warning screen displayed when you try to enter a voter who is not 18 as of the data entry date. You can always override this warning if need be. This should reduce the number of too young voter names appearing on rosters. Question: Are school districts included in the absentee voting health care facility outreach? Answer: Yes. 203B.01 Absentee balloting; definitions. Subd. 2. Municipal clerk. Municipal clerk means a full-time town or city clerk who is authorized or required to administer the provisions of sections 203B.04 to 203B.15, as provided in section 203B.05. 4

5 We are updating our Minnesota Ballot Bulletin Newsletter mailing List. If you would like to be added to this list, or know someone that does, please complete this section and either mail or fax it to our office. BALLOT BULLETIN REQUEST FORM Yes, Please add me to the Minnesota Ballot Bulletin mailing list: NAME: TITLE: ADDRESS: CITY: STATE: ZIP CODE: ADDRESS: Please return form to: Robin Anthony Elections Division Secretary of State s Office 180 State Office Building 100 Constitution Avenue St. Paul Minnesota FAX (651) First Class U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 171 St. Paul, MN Secretary of State 180 State Office Building 100 Constitution Ave. St. Paul, MN (651)