If you have any questions on where, when or how to vote, the League of Women Voters has information on how to register to vote, where to vote in your local area, what to bring to the polling place and all the relevant laws governing the process at Vote411.org.

In St. Paul, Tuesday’s election signals the city’s first use of ranked choice voting, which allows voters to pick a second choice that will be counted if the voter’s first choice is eliminated (more information on ranked voting is available at the Ramsey County election center).

Wherever you are in the state, if you run into any problems at the polling places tomorrow—long lines, not enough ballots, partisan attempts to intimidate voters—we encourage you to report that news to the world by using the Twitter hashtag #votingproblems and by emailing the Minnesota Independent at tips@minnesotaindependent.com.

In an interview with Stateline, Kansas Secretary of State-elect Kris Kobach said that Minnesota’s Secretary of State Mark Ritchie committed a “heist” in the recount election of Sen. Al Franken. A Republican, Kobach ran on a platform of eliminating voter fraud and was — as Stateline notes — “the intellectual architect of Arizona’s S.B. 1070, the tough-on-illegal-immigrants legislation signed into law in that state last year.” Ritchie, whose work with the bipartisan canvassing board in the Coleman-Franken recount was praised by many, was handily reelected by voters in 2010.

According to Stateline:

Kobach called the 2008 Minnesota recount that led to Democrat Al Franken’s narrow U.S. Senate victory a “pseudo-election.” He also attacked Minnesota’s Democratic secretary of state, Mark Ritchie, for playing “a pivotal role in the heist — manipulating the process to pacify a leftist mob.”
Kobach went on to argue that “the problem is only going to get worse, unless the country’s secretaries of state take the necessary steps to protect the integrity of our elections. The threat is real, and time is short.”

In Kansas, Kobach “would be transforming the model (of the secretary of state office) somewhat, from a ministerial model to more of a law enforcement model.”

Mark Ritchie, who oversaw the contentious recount in the 2008 U.S. Senate race between Sen. Al Franken and former Sen. Norm Coleman, will serve another term as Secretary of State. The Associated Press called the race for Ritchie shortly after 9 p.m. At that time, Ritchie led Republican challenger Dan Severson by a margin of 58 percent to 37 percent, with 15 percent of precincts reporting.

Severson, a state representative from Sauk Rapids, ran a campaign alleging that Ritchie helped sway the 2008 recount for Franken and said he believes there’s no such thing as separation of church and state.

Ritchie, however, touted the recount and election contest as an example of good government, noting that the Minnesota Supreme Court gave him high marks during the recount.

Ritchie also had to fend off a campaign by Minnesota Majority that alleged “massive” voter fraud during the 2008 election and an ad campaign by the Republican Party of Minnesota that argued Ritchie is too partisan for the office of Secretary of State.

Republican Secretary of State candidate Dan Severson has been hitting the religious right radio circuit over the past few weeks, doing interviews with headline-making figures like Bradlee Dean of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide and Pastor Brad Brandon of Berean Bible Baptist Church in Hastings. Severson told his interviewers that he believes the constitutional clause calling for the separation of church and state doesn’t exist, and that he feels there was “fraud, in a major way” in the U.S. Senate recount of 2008.

“Quite often you hear people say, ‘What about separation of church and state?’ There is no such thing,” Severson told Brandon. “I mean it just does not exist, and it does not exist in America for a purpose, because we are a Christian nation.”

He continued, “We are a nation based on Christian principles and ideals, and those are the things that guarantee our liberties. It is one of those things that is so fundamental to the freedoms that we have that when you begin to restrict our belief and our attestation to our Christian values you begin to restrict our liberties.”

He added, “You simply cannot continue a nation as America without that Christian base of liberty.”

Severson says voters must know his position on the matter.

“Look, this is what I stand for. If you don’t like that, don’t vote for me, and then the majority of the people will have their voice heard,” he said. “It’s wrong for politicians to do one thing on the campaign trail to get the vote and do exactly the opposite once they get to office. To me that is an impeachable offense.”

Severson, who has been a supporter of Minnesota’s tea party activists, made his statements days before candidate Christine O’Donnell made a similar assertion during a Delaware radio debate.

“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” O’Donnell asked her U.S. Senate opponent, Democrat Chris Coons.

Coons said the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides for the separation: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

O’Donnell asked: “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?”

Severson also appeared on Bradlee Dean’s radio show last weekend, minutes after Dean claimed that anti-LGBT bullying advocates “are going after kids.”

Severson, who has bought tickets to the You Can Run But You Cannot Hide fundraiser at the end of the month, told Dean that the Norm Coleman–Al Franken recount was a “fraud” and that the Minnesota Supreme Court erred when it ruled that the recount could proceed. He also went after incumbent Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.

“Man, was that was a debacle,” Severson said of the recount. “I think when people saw the constant migration from Coleman going from 700-plus [votes] on election day to just a constant nipping away — in a normal recount like that you see some back and forth, some give and take, and that didn’t happen.”

He said, “And that was something Ritchie orchestrated that was no longer just a recount but a recount contest, which there was no provision in our state statutes. All those ballots that were considered? There was no statutory ability for them to do that.”

“The Supreme Court ruled in error when they made that whole process available,” he said. “The question I’d like to ask the Supreme Court is what was it that you based your ruling on?”

Severson’s campaign did not return a request for comment by the Minnesota Independent.

Here’s Severson’s interview with Brad Brandon:

Here’s Severson’s interview with Bradlee Dean:

In advance of Saturday’s League of Women Voters/KSTP debate, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie will begin airing a television ad, his first of the 2010 campaign. A straight spot, it runs down his successes on the job, from increasing voting rates among military personnel by 300 percent to overseeing the recount and election challenge in Minnesota’s 2008 Senate race between Sen. Al Franken and former Sen. Norm Coleman. “We brought integrity and fairness to the closest election in 50 years,” Ritchie says in the ad, “and the Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously agreed: We got it right.”

The ad begins airing on KARE-11 this evening, Ritchie campaign manager Leah Solo tells the Minnesota Independent. She wouldn’t reveal the size of the media buy, but reminded that the campaign can only spend $214,000 for the entirety of its statewide activities. “You can draw your own conclusions from that,” she said, hinting that the ad buy would be small.

Ritchie, the DFL incumbent, is running against Republican Dan Severson. The pair debates in the KSTP studios this Saturday, with the exchange broadcast on the station on Oct. 18, 21, 26 and 30.

Watch “Integrity. Fairness.”:

Rep. Dan Severson at Day of Prayer rally

GOP candidate for Secretary of State Dan Severson will not be allowed to use the nickname “Doc” Severson on the ballot in November, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled on Monday. Severson hadn’t used the nickname — which he said stems from his days in the Navy — in any of his previous campaigns for office. DFL activists had filed the lawsuit to prevent Severson from using the nickname, which sounds very similar to former Tonight Show musician Doc Severinsen.

Severson told the Star Tribune, “It’s not a big deal. It was kind of anticipated.”

A four-term state legislator, Severson is a strong proponent of Christian principles in government and has taken a lead position in passing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Through its new site, RitchieFacts.com, the GOP claims Ritchie is a partisan, that he thought Norm Coleman would try to win the U.S. Senate election at any cost, and that Ritchie “partnered with liberal attack blog” The Uptake, the nonprofit news site that offered free, live web video of the U.S. Senate recount proceedings.

GOP deputy chair Michael Brodkorb — who, prior to starting his current job, leveled some of the same charges at his own attack blog, Minnesota Democrats Exposed  — said in a statement Thursday, “Over the next 16 months, we are going to hold Mark Ritchie accountable for his actions, and we are going to make sure Minnesotans know the truth about his record.”

GOP party chair Tony Sutton, also in a statement, said, “With secretaries of state from all over the United States convening in Minneapolis this week, I hope they aren’t looking to Mark Ritchie for leadership. I want the visiting secretaries of state to know the truth about Ritchie’s record. Mark Ritchie is not a subject matter expert on fair and open elections.”

One top Republican, Politics in Minnesota’s Sarah Janecek might take issue with that. In naming Ritchie 2008 “Politician of the Year,” she wrote, “We dare anyone to find one public statement made by Ritchie during the recount that was partisan in favor of Franken. It cannot be done, because Ritchie didn’t do it, and we — and many others — were carefully looking for one. Our historically partisan Democrat Secretary of State proved to be a nonpartisan statesman.”

Despite the word “facts” in the GOP website’s name, nearly half of the sources at RitchieFacts.com are from opinion pieces; the most-cited source is the much-criticized Wall Street Journal editorial, “Mischief in Minnesota?”

The DFL offered a response to the attacks today.

“The eight-month Senate election that just wrapped up showed that Minnesota’s elections are transparent, accurate, and fair. Minnesotans are indeed proud of our elections system and with the election officials entrusted with conducting it,” said DFL party chair Brian Melendez. “Our state and its citizens are facing real problems, but our election system isn’t one of them.”

Melendez continued, “As the Republicans were spinning out their smear campaign, Secretary Ritchie organized a day of democratic participation and brought citizens together with elected officials to take on some of the difficult issues facing our state and nation,” he said. “And while the Republicans focus on petty attacks, our DFL leaders are focused on jobs, on health-care reform, and on helping Minnesota’s communities and citizens cope with the consequences of Governor Pawlenty’s unallotments.”

And reject they did, leaving about 400 individual voters with only one way to re-enfranchise themselves: by filing a lawsuit of their own. But they have to do it by Jan. 12, according to courtesy letters the Secretary of State Mark Ritchie sent Jan. 7. And the price tag (don’t call it a poll tax) could be as high as $5,000 per voter, according to one local attorney with experience in election law.

Charles Shreffler, who before leaving private practice was one of the few local attorneys handling election law cases (for Republicans, he says), estimated in an interview today that the cost of an election contest would be at least $2,500 and more likely in the $3,000–$5,000 range. “It’s not rocket science,” he said of the legal work required, but the relative scarcity of specialists in the field — and the fact that many are already engaged by one side or the other in the Minnesota Senate recount — might play into the price.

The lawsuit Coleman’s campaign filed on Jan. 6 also took the form of an election contest, but one with a much wider scope than those that individuals receiving the letter from Bert Black, Ritchie’s legal adviser, would bring. Ritchie griped publicly about the Supreme Court’s ruling several times in the closing weeks of the recount, wondering aloud how a soldier in Baghdad whose valid absentee ballot a campaign vetoed would manage to file an election contest from the other side of the world.

The campaigns didn’t know what the votes were on the ballots they rejected; they only saw the outside envelopes that carried the absentee voters’ names and addresses. But campaign representatives had fairly wide latitude, as long as they completed a form giving a reason for each rejection.

“I’ve had better days,” Knaak conceded. “The numbers are what they are.” But he repeated that the “process was broken” and predicted that “the election will still be called in Coleman’s favor.”

That will happen, Coleman attorney Tony Trimble said, when hundreds of absentee ballots that the campaign still wants reviewed are opened and counted. “We’re still trying to ferret out for counting these 600 ballots,” he said, adding that fixing more than 100 allegedly double-counted ballots in Minneapolis would help Coleman as well.

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said he expected that the State Canvassing Board would declare a result of the election on Monday — a result that seems all but certain to favor Franken.

“I’m also not happy that the two campaigns had the right to veto” once-rejected absentee ballots that local officials, on review, determined should be counted — referring to a controversial Dec. 18 state Supreme Court ruling that only absentee ballots that election officials and campaign representatives could agree upon should be counted.

Attorneys for Franken and Coleman inspect ballots (The Uptake)

Here, direct from Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie himself, are the dates and times of a dozen public meetings on the U.S. Senate recount to be held on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday this week at locations around the state. At these regional meetings, the campaigns of Al Franken and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman will hash out with county election officials which of as many as 1,600 wrongly rejected absentee ballots should be included in the final vote tally. That’s in accordance with a state Supreme Court order that gave the two campaigns a role in deciding whether uncounted absentee ballots that local officials have determined were turned aside for no valid reason should be opened and counted.

Mark your calendars and make your travel plans for the dates and times listed after the jump. These are the regional recount meetings mentioned but not listed in the Dec. 27 Star Tribune. Check back for an update as to whether The Uptake will provide online video for any of these meetings. Note that the meetings in Beltrami and Dakota counties will take place over two days. The last meeting on the list, at the Secretary of State’s office in St. Paul, is the occasion for opening the ballots that all parties have agreed at the regional meetings should be counted.

TUESDAY, DEC. 30
County Board Room, St. Louis County Courthouse
100 N. Fifth Ave., Duluth, Minn.
9 a.m.

Beltrami County Board Room, County Administration Building
701 Minnesota Ave., Bemidji, Minn. 
10 a.m.–3 p.m.

Council Board Chambers and Conference Room 1, Olmsted County Government Center
151 Fourth St. SE, Rochester, Minn.
1 p.m.

Kandiyohi County Government Center
2200 23rd St. NE, Willmar, Minn.
1:30 p.m.

County Board Room, Sherburne County Government Center
13880 Highway 10, Elk River, Minn.
8:30 a.m.

Room 710, Anoka County Government Center
2100 Third Ave., Anoka, Minn.
9 a.m.

Dakota County Board Room
1590 Highway 55, Hastings, Minn.
1 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 31

Dakota County Board Room
1590 Highway 55, Hastings, Minn.
9 a.m. (continued from Tuesday)

Location to be determined, Wright County
Buffalo, Minn.
9 a.m.

First Floor Auditorium, Blue Earth County Government Center
410 S. Fifth St., Mankato, Minn.
10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Multiple rooms, Otter Tail County Government Service Center
500 W. Fir Ave., Fergus Falls, Minn.
9 a.m.

Meeting Rooms 1 and 2, Crow Wing County Land Services Building
322 Laurel St., Brainerd, Minn.
10 a.m.

Room to be determined, Polk County Government Center
612 N. Broadway, Suite 207, Crookston, Minn.
10 a.m.

FRIDAY, JAN. 2

Beltrami County Board Room, County Administration Building
701 Minnesota Ave., Bemidji, Minn.
10 a.m.–3 p.m. (second meeting)

180 State Office Building, Secretary of State’s Office
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., St. Paul
10 a.m.