"The ACLU and others in the lawsuit were arguing that the state of Minnesota had to this year, because of COVID-19, had to conduct our Election that way. We disagreed with that. We disagreed that the law said that's the way it has to be."
That's Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon explaining a lawsuit settled yesterday between several entities, including the ACLU, against the state of Minnesota. As for the settlement, the state will mail an absentee ballot application to every registered voter in Minnesota who hasn't already requested one.
"This was a way to say, no, we're not going to do it that way," Steve Simon told WCCO's Mark Freie. "But we are going to make it easier for folks who want to. And no one has to. But folks who want to vote absentee and vote from home, let's make it easier to do that by going right to them, telling them what the rules are."
Simon told WCCO those applications were sent out Thursday.
This as the state reported earlier Friday they have surpassed 1 million requests for absentee or vote-by-mail ballots.
"To put that number in perspective, we're expecting about, maybe a little more than 3 million voters," says Simon. "We're soon going to reach the time, in the next few days I predict, where over a third of people that are going to vote, are going to vote from home, or by use of the mail."
A federal judge on Thursday issued an historic decision to temporarily block the US Postal Service and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy from changing several USPS policies or protocols ahead of November's presidential election.
"If you're getting your ballot back by mail, you can postmark it as late as Election Day, November third, as long as it arrives a week later, Tuesday, November 10th," Simon tells WCCO. "Another way to look at it is every single Minnesotan now has a minimum seven day cushion to get that ballot from point A to point B, even if they wait until the last minute."
In other words, instead of Election Day, we could be looking at Election week across the country.