Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Absentee voting - Ramsey City Hall - SD35 special election - presuming there will be a primary.

Candidates for the vacancy could withdraw until the end of the business day, yesterday, so Ramsey's City Clerk in responding to an email noted that as a caveat, in writing yesterday:

[...] we won’t put any updates on the website until tomorrow morning [Wednesday, Dec. 16] when everything is finalized and we know that there will be a Primary for sure. I don’t look for any candidates to pull out – but . . . I guess you never know. Absentee voting is scheduled to begin Friday morning for the Primary; however, there is a chance with the such a short time period for printing that we may not get our ballots until Monday. So – as in the past, we will offer in-person absentee voting here at City Hall – reception area; however, it may not be until Monday and after. When we update our website tomorrow with election information – it will be under the elections tab.

This is posted, while the Ramsey main page is giving me an access error. Expect an update very soon, if I can reach the page, with the update linking to the election notices subpage.

________________UPDATE_______________
8:58 AM 12/16/2015 -- The primary information was not yet posted, but readers during the day should focus

http://www.ci.ramsey.mn.us/elections

The Governor's Writ of Special election is posted by Ramsey, here.

BOTTOM LINE: Readers can reasonably plan on voting, Republican Primary, absentee and in person at the Ramsey City Hall reception area, Monday, Dec 21, and onward, i.e., waiting until then to be more certain that ballots are printed and delivered to City Hall and available.

It appears the Democrats will not have a primary, with only one candidate having filed. Ditto, for the NORML candidate.

However, rely only on what the City Clerk posts, at the above link.

This is believed to not be a nonpartisan election, (where the top two vote-getters move on to a general election [as with County Board or Ramsey Council elections]), and instead one where if one of the two parties has multiple candidates filing, then that party will be on a primary ballot, without any requirement of party affiliation/approval by party insiders required for any properly registered voter to participate. Contact the city clerk or the county election office about if you are not registered or have changed address, but want to be registered and updated. That would be the step for anyone new to Ramsey and not yet registered as living here.

___________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Apart from any election related matters, readers interested in Highway 10 improvements and upgrades should read this press release - notice.

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ABC Newspapers coverage of SD35, this link, for a cumulative listing of published items, each with a brief abstract of the full reporting.

It appears one potential candidate ABC reported, this link, has not filed, according to the official Secretary of State page. That page lists four candidates, with no indication of any of the four having exercised yesterday's "second thoughts" withdrawal grace period. If any reader knows why Personius did not follow up on filing, please leave a comment explaining it. Absent that, it appears either it was a change of mind, or not meeting a filing deadline with proper paperwork, including petition signatures (again see this SoS page).