MINNEAPOLIS — Hennepin County elections officials Monday confirmed that the absentee ballots left unattended for nearly seven minutes last week were all accounted for and had not been altered or tampered with in any other way. No ballots were removed from the shipment or added to it.
Ginny Gelms, who heads Hennepin County's Elections Office, told reporters the incident is still very disturbing all the same because it goes against the training third-party couriers are supposed to receive when it comes to moving ballot transfer boxes from the early voting sites to the county's main elections center.
"When something like this happens, obviously, we hate it! It is not up to our standards, and it is not acceptable. And that's why we take immediate corrective action when something like this happens," Gelms told reporters in an online press conference Monday.
"When we reached out to the courier, they were very responsive to us. They completely understood and shared our dismay at this happening. And they assured us that they have terminated the driver in question and are reiterating and retraining all of their drivers on all of the security protocols we expect of our couriers."
When you vote early in person in Minnesota, you're casting an absentee ballot. Eventually, a pair of bipartisan election judges will decide first whether to accept the ballot based on whether the paperwork is filled out correctly.
If it's accepted, other bipartisan judges will open the ballots to prepare them to be stored until they can be counted on Election Day. Each voter's ballot envelope is tracked along the way through the Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS).
That SVRS allows voters to track the status of their absentee ballots on the Secretary of State’s website. It also ensures that a person can’t vote both absentee and on Election Day. And it enables elections administrators to verify the ballots couriers pick up from cities are the same ones they deliver to the county.
"Whether that person is submitting an in-person absentee ballot in Edina, or in Hopkins, or in Bloomington, or in Minneapolis, all that information goes into the same system," Gelms explained.
"And we have access to that, we can see how many ballots have been issued. We can see who's been issued those ballots. We can see where those ballots are at every step in the process."
That's why Gelms can state with certainty that the ballots left unattended last Friday outside Edina City hall weren’t tampered with at any point along the journey.
"And that's part of our regular everyday process. We do that with every single batch of ballots, not just when an incident occurs. We do that every single day. And we know there has been no tampering with any ballot. Zero!"
Edina City Hall surveillance video shows that a courier working for Smart Delivery Services left his delivery van's back hatch open for nearly seven minutes in the parking lot Friday while he was inside city hall picking up more early absentee ballots.
At one point a bystander can be seen stopping and peering into the unattended, open van before walking away. It’s likely that’s the same person who took the photo that was posted to X by the District 50 Republicans account later that day, and was amplified through social media and published reports.
Smart Delivery Services didn’t respond Monday to calls and email messages from KARE, but Gelms said the company told her the errant courier was fired. His co-workers are being retrained on the protocol, including the fact that ballots can't be left unattended in an unlocked vehicle.
"When I reached out to courier service they completely understood. They know this is unacceptable. And this is NOT how they train their drivers to deal with these materials. This is not what we expect in our contract with them."
To be clear, an absentee ballot goes into a secrecy envelope, which goes into the signature envelope, which goes into the ballot transfer box that is sealed before it can be transported. Election judges and staff know who voted, but don’t know how they voted.
There's also a strict chain of custody protocol. Local elections staff fill out a chain of custody form that shows many ballots and ballot boxes are left at their location, so it can be double-checked when the courier finishes the route at the county’s central office in Minneapolis.
"Yes, mistakes can happen, so we have many fail-safes along the way so that when a human error does crop up people can still have trust in the process. We received every single ballot that we were supposed to, and we didn’t receive any ballots that we weren’t supposed to."
Ginny Gelms said the reason Hennepin County uses a third-party contractor is the sheer volume of early absentee ballots coming in from all the cities that have early voting centers. She said they could eliminate the need for couriers if they only allowed early absentee voting at the Government Center in downtown Minneapolis, but that would make voting less convenient.
The county has been working with Smart Delivery for three years without any problems, and for the time being, will remain with that company. KARE’s calls and emails to Smart Delivery went unanswered on Monday.
Secretary of State Steve Simon called what happened in Edina "unacceptable" but is happy to hear the system worked.
"This incident was totally unacceptable," Simon wrote in a statement to the media on Monday. "The county has taken appropriate, swift, and transparent action to determine that no ballots were compromised and to ensure this will not happen again."
Simon said his office has issued a bulletin reminding elections administrators across the state reminding them of ballot custody procedures.
"This is a teachable moment for everyone involved in administering our elections. To that end, our office has lent support to the county in their response to this incident and will continue to be available to support them and all other localities conducting elections."
During Monday’s news conference, a reporter for Alpha News asked why some ballot transfer boxes were sealed with red security seals while others had blue seals, implying the ballots had been sorted by party.
Again, the ballots were still sealed inside two envelopes so nobody could know how a particular voter voted. Minnesota voters don’t register by party.
Gelms said each city decides on its own what colors of seals to place on their ballot transfer boxes. She said some cities use colored plastic zip seals, while others use tape and paper seals. In other words, nothing should be read into what color tie is used to seal a box.
When asked why absentee ballots aren't escorted by election judges, Gelms said most judges volunteer to serve for one day during an election cycle. She noted the early voting window runs for 46 days before each election, which makes it difficult to find election judges to fulfill that the task of moving tens of thousands of ballots over that time period.