Who is on primary ballot Aug. 9?

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Early voting in the Aug. 9, 2022, primary election is now underway. There is plenty to choose from on the ballot this year on the federal, state and more local levels.
Even if you are not interested in voting as part of one of the state’s four major political parties to select their candidates for the general election, you can still vote and influence who appears on the November ballot in key important local elections.
You can see your own sample ballot, and even print it out to bring to the polling place with you, at https://myballotmn.sos.state.mn.us/.
If you do, you will discover that this year there are two ballots-in-one.

The State Partisan Primary Election
One, on the front page, is called the State Partisan Primary Ballot. This ballot is for those who wish to vote for the offices that are connected, by election law, to one of the major political parties. All political parties that qualify as a major party in Minnesota and required to participate in primary elections if more than one person files for a particular partisan office under their party’s name. For these offices, only one candidate from each party may run in the general election. Since 2018, we have had four major parties in our state: the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis Party, the Legal Marijuana Now Party, the Republican Party of Minnesota and the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL).
Each major party will have one column on this partisan ballot, and, if voters vote at all on this ballot, they are required to limit all votes for only one of the four parties. If you vote for candidates from more than one political party your ballot is “spoiled” and will not be counted.
For the smaller of the two parties, the candidates on the ballots for southside Minneapolis voters will only be in the races for Governor and Lieutenant Governor. For the Republicans, there are candidates to choose from at the federal level for U.S. Representative District 5, and at the state level for Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. The DFL has the most candidate and offices on the ballot. They have five candidates who filed for U. S. 5th District Representative and two each for Governor, Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. For some southside voters, the DFL also has primary races at the legislative district level.
Because more than one candidate has filed with the DFL for Senate Districts 62 and 63, as well as for House District 62A, those races will also be on the primary partisan side of the ballot in the DFL column. State Senator Omar Fateh is being challenged by union organizer Shaun Laden in 62. Zaynab Mohamed and Todd C. Scott are vying in 63 for the seat being vacated by Patricia Torres Ray. The current State Representative for 62A, Aisha Gomez, is being challenged in the primary by Osman Ahmed who also ran unsuccessfully for the same seat in the primary in 2018.

The Nonpartisan Primary Runoff Election
Perhaps the most significant impact voters will have in the primary is on the second ballot, called the State and County Nonpartisan Primary Ballot. Turn the partisan ballot over and there it is.
Even if you have no interest in selecting any of the major party candidates who will appear on the general election ballot, you can use this ballot to participate in voting for who will go on to the general election for some critically important nonpartisan races in Hennepin County and for the Minneapolis Public Schools. Those include County Sheriff, County Attorney and two At-Large School Board members. The top two vote getters for County Attorney and County Sheriff will go on to the General Election. For the two at-large school board member offices, the four top voters will go to the general election where two at large board members will be elected.
This year’s election for Sheriff and County Attorney are especially significant because, no matter who wins, both will be new to the office and, based on historic trends, could end up for serving for years to come. The current County Attorney, Mike Freeman, for example, is stepping down after serving 16 years, from 2006-2022. Prior to that he was County Attorney from 1991-1999. While the current Sheriff, Dave Hutchinson (currently on a leave of absence) is leaving after only one term, former sheriffs have served longer, including Patrick McGowan who served from 1995 to 2006, and Rich Stanek who served from 2007 to 2019.
There are three people running for sheriff in the primary: Dawanna Witt, Jai Hansen and Joseph Banks. For County Attorney there are seven: Martha Holton Dimick, Jarvis Jones, Tad Jude, Mary Moriarty, Paul Ostrow, Saraswati Singh, and Ryan Winkler.
The at-large school board candidates are Colin Beachy, Sonya Emerick, Kerry Jo Felder, Harley Meyer, Lisa Skjefte and Harley Meyer.
Many Longfellow/Nokomis voters will also have a district level school board member primary election on their ballot. If you live in Minneapolis east of 35W, and south of 34th St., you are in School Board District 5 and can cast a vote for either Laurelle Myhra, Leslie Haugland-Smith, Elena Condos or Lori Norvel. The top two vote getters of that group will go on to run in the general election this fall.
Voter turnout in primary elections is consistently much lower than in general elections. The highest it has been since 1950, according to the Secretary of State’s Office, was in 1966 when 39.39% of eligible voters voted in the primary. It hasn’t been over 30% since 1970. As a comparison, turnout in the 2020 General Election was 79%, and it hasn’t been lower than 50% since 1986.
In the primary many candidates are eliminated. This year five of the seven candidates will be eliminated in the County Attorney race and two of six in the at-large school board race.
“While these elections tend to turn out fewer voters than the November General election, they are in many cases more important than the November election as the candidate who wins the primary will go on to win in November for lack of serious competition from the other party,” said FairVote Minnesota Executive Director Jeanne Massey. “In primary races across the country in races with several candidates, we are seeing candidates win with just 20% or 30% of the vote this year in small turnout elections. That is bad for democracy. It is imperative voters turn out Aug. 9 for the primary and make their vote count.”
If you haven’t voted yet, you still have time before the primary election day, Aug. 9. There is time to print your sample ballot, explore candidate websites, talk to friends and neighbors, reach out to candidates, and take advantage of this opportunity. People can register and vote through Aug. 8 at the early-voting site at 980 E. Hennepin Ave. Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. or, on election day, Aug. 9 at their polling place. You can call Minneapolis voter services at 311 or 612-673-3000 (TTY: 612-673-2157) and find more information at www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/; https://vote.minneapolismn.gov/; https://www.vote411.org/; and https://lwvmpls.org/.

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