The eyes of the nation have fallen once before on Minneapolis Precinct 1, Ward 3, where the rebuilt I-35W bridge leaves land to once again leap over the Mississippi River. Now that same precinct has gained the title as the latest and greatest Ground Zero of messed-up election practices to be exposed during Minnesota’s statewide recount in the U.S. Senate contest between Democrat Al Franken and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman.

It’s there, in the Dinkytown neighborhood on the edge of the University of Minnesota campus, that poll workers recorded 133 more votes than they have ballots to show for it. It’s also there that students trying to vote via Minnesota’s same-day registration process were turned away in a re-run of a major snafu at another campus polling place during the general election two years ago.

As the Minnesota Independent reported Nov. 25, residents at The Chateau student co-op highrise who tried to register at the polls on Election Day, using proof of residency issued by the building’s management office as a second form of ID, were turned away until as late as 5 p.m. For the MnIndy video accompanying that story, student Jill Stein told of returning to the polling place twice before giving up and voting at her parents’ home precinct in the suburbs. How many of the 290 students who live in The Chateau likewise made honest attempts but were ultimately unable to vote is anyone’s guess.

The Chateau fiasco is a direct descendant of a similar situation that happened nearby during the 2006 election, as Beth Fraser, government affairs director at the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office, explained in an interview with MnIndy last month. Residents of the Melrose Student Suites, an off-campus housing complex in the nearby Stadium Village area, likewise pay utilities as part of their rent, and poll workers rejected documentation from the building management as a form of ID.

Just as with Chateau residents this year, students from the Melrose who tried to register at the polls in 2006 had to wait until late on Election Day to cast their ballots. That’s when Hennepin County Judge Gary Larson ruled in favor of a petition from Melrose resident and first-year U of M student Greg Shaffer. Larson ordered election officials to accept the Melrose proof of residency and to keep the polling place open an hour later. In doing so, Larson overruled a decision by then-Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer to deny the students ballots.

The case had broader repercussions. The new secretary of state who won election in 2006, Mark Ritchie, wanted to take the office in a voter-positive direction after the Kiffmeyer-era policies that sometimes emphasized voter suppression. In the wake of the Melrose decision, his office “proposed and adopted
 rule changes to allow the use of the itemized rent statement in lieu of a 
utility bill,” Fraser wrote in an e-mail to MnIndy this week. As she tells it:

In 2008, a new proof of residence was authorized specifically to address the 
challenges of registering to vote by those whose utilities are included in 
their rent: a rent statement from a resident’s landlord that itemizes their 
utilities. The statement that the Chateau originally provided did not 
suffice, because it was not addressed to the student and did not itemize 
their utility expenses. Residents of the Chateau later received a revised
statement and used it to register to vote.

But despite Ritchie’s intention to resolve this kind of polling-place problem, the new rule came as a surprise to The Chateau’s management when they found out about it on Election Day, and the result was the same for students who were unable to vote for most of the day.

How does Ritchie’s office plan to avoid yet another repeat of the problem next time? Fraser writes:

This office will work with the Minnesota Multi Housing Association and student organizations to ensure that apartment building owners and students are familiar with what is needed in a rent statement that can be used in combination with a photo ID for the purpose of Election Day Registration.

The Minnesota Daily, in an editorial this week — following a news story that, like MnIndy’s, featured Chateau resident Jill Stein — recommended just such an approach to city election officials, reminding its student readers, “Your vote should count.”

But with the lost and missing votes in Minneapolis Precinct 1, Ward 3 already playing a central role in the current recount drama, more drastic proposals for Minnesota to get its election practices right are sure to be advanced.

Indeed, one already has: Ritchie’s rival for the DFL endorsement in 2006, Christian Sande, wrote an article earlier this year urging the state to consider following Wisconsin’s example and grant responsibility for managing elections to a commission of current and retired judges. It’s a move that could involve doing away with the office of secretary of state altogether.