It's not important to this meeting because it's not actually totally.

So I'll just make sure there's some red tags.

All my specific.

Good morning.

My name is Aisha Chugtai.

This is the regular meeting of the city's canvassing board for Monday, November 10th, 2025.

Under state law, the council serves as the canvassing board and is responsible for canvassing and certifying results from city elections.

Given that we have conducted a municipal election last Tuesday, our job today is to canvas the returns of that election.

Before we begin the meeting, I want to offer a friendly reminder to all members, staff, and the public that these meetings are broadcast live to enable greater public participation.

These broadcasts include real-time captioning as a further method to increase the accessibility of our proceedings to the community.

Therefore, all speakers need to be mindful of the rate of their speech so that our captioners can fully capture and transcribe all comments for the broadcast.

We ask all speakers to moderate the speed and clarity of their comments.

At this time, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll to verify the presence of a quorum.

Board Member Wansley.

President Ellison is absent.

Osman is absent.

Cashman.

Present.

Jenkins is absent.

Chavez.

Present.

Chowdry is absent.

Palmasano.

Present.

Vice Chair Chuktai.

Present.

Chair Payne.

Chair Payne.

There are nine members present.

Let their record reflect that we have a quorum, and I'll turn the chair over.

Uh President Payne.

Next, we have the adoption of our agenda.

Colleagues, as noted, we're here in our capacity as the city's canvassing board to canvas returns from last week's general election.

The agenda details, uh the recommended actions to be considered today.

I'll start by entertaining a motion to adopt the agenda as presented.

So we'll the clerk will call the roll.

Board member Wandsley.

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Koski.

Aye.

Palmasano.

Aye.

Vice Chair Chuktai.

Aye.

Chair Payne.

Aye.

There are nine eyes.

That carries, and the agenda is adopted.

At this time, I'll recognize our city clerk, Mr.

Carl.

Thank you.

And uh the vice chair, Council Member Shugtai stole my script.

So I really don't have anything to say, which is great.

She explained everything about why we're here.

So my job is to introduce the awesome leadership team for the city's outstanding elections and voter services division, something I enjoy doing.

And that is Director Katie Smith and Deputy Director John Martin, who are here to present the report of the returns from our most recent municipal election.

Good morning and thank you.

Chair Payne, my name is Katie Smith, and I am the director of elections and voter services.

This year's municipal election had the highest turnout of any Minneapolis municipal election on record.

A hundred and forty-seven thousand seven hundred and two total ballots were cast in this year's election, which equates to a total 55% of registered voter turnout.

While there are countless factors that drive turnout, I'd like to just take a brief moment to celebrate the impact my team made this year on expanding access to the ballot box.

While curbside voting is always an option at any polling site in Minneapolis, whether that's during early voting or on election day, this year EVS piloted our new curbside voting hotline on election day across three of our city wards.

We received a total of 22 calls to the Curbside Hotline on election day, and this process will be citywide in 2026 and beyond.

Our voter outreach team was also focused and committed to ensuring our voters were updated on important election messaging.

We attended events and tabled in each ward across the city, and we were active across various modes of media, which included social website, our local newspapers and newsletters, and a campus email.

And lastly, within our election judge training program, our interpreter training this year expanded to now include not only Somali seminars, but also available in Spanish.

And while we cannot take all of the credit for this record-breaking turnout in 2025, I'm immensely proud of my team, our election judges, and all of our partners within the city and our partner organizations and jurisdictions for their hard work and dedication in the administration of this election.

And now a little bit about the numbers from this election.

Early voting began on September 19th this year, which included early voting on our main site at 980's Tenopen and five one-day voting sites.

The City of Minneapolis offered extended weekday and weekend hours during the final two weeks leading up to election day.

Direct balloting was available to in-person voters beginning October 17th for the final 18 days.

As a result of those expansions of in-person service hours, the City of Minneapolis offered a total of 317 hours over a 46 day period.

In total, the early vote represented approximately 17.9% of turnout this year.

On election day, all 137 precincts opened at 7 a.m.

and remained open until 8 p.m.

and until all voters who were in line had the opportunity to cast their ballot.

A total of 121,259 voters cast ballots on election day.

82.1% of all ballots were cast at the polls on election day.

This year, 15,629 people registered to vote using the election day registration process, whether that was during early voting or at the polls on election day.

That represents a total of 10.6% of total voters who use the election day registration process.

On election night, unofficial winners were declared in 15 contests where a candidate had passed the maximum possible threshold.

And then on Wednesday, November the 5th, elections and voter services completed ranked choice tabulation for the remaining seven races.

Tabulation was completed and the final race was declared just before 3 p.m.

In total, the tabulation teams worked just under six hours on Wednesday to finish the election, declare unofficial winners in all races on the ballot, and complete tabulation of the two declared write-in candidates.

A full report of this year's election results, including a statistical analysis of each race, has been compiled and provided to the canvassing board.

Minnesota statutes designate the city council as the canvassing board for the return of municipal election results.

As required by law, the canvassing board must convene between the third and the 10th day following the election to canvas the results and declare the official results.

Today marks the sixth day following the general election, so we are well within the statutory time frame to complete the canvas of returns.

We as staff have prepared a draft order to be considered by the canvassing board, and this order certifies the official results of the 2025 municipal election, declares official winners in each race on the ballot, indicating the names of each person receiving votes and the number of votes received by each office voted upon, and directs the city clerk to submit a certified copy of the official results of the 2025 municipal election to Henneband County, and to file and preserve the original returns in all election records in accordance with Minnesota election law.

The declaration of final results today triggers a seven-day contest period.

During that period, any eligible voter may contest the nomination or election of any person for whom that voter had the right to vote if that person is declared nominated or elected.

The contest may be brought over an irregularity in the conduct of the election or the canvas of votes over the question of who received the largest number of votes legally cast, or on the grounds of deliberate, serious and material violation of Minnesota election law.

After the seven-day contest period has passed, the city clerk shall issue a certificate of election to each candidate who was successfully declared the winner as a result of the canvas.

And that completes my presentation of the election returns from the 2025 municipal.

I am happy to respond to any questions from the board.

Thank you, Mrs.

Smith.

Before I forward a motion, I'll ask if there are any questions in this first half about the canvassing results.

Okay.

Uh with that, I move to adopt the order certifying the canvassed returns from the twenty twenty-five general election ballot as official and direct the clerk to make the filings of those official results as required by law, all as reflected in the staff report.

Is there a second to that motion?

Second.

The clerk will call the roll.

Councilman Osman had a question.

Councilman Brosman.

I was just gonna say down president of the future.

Yeah, sorry.

Uh but the record reflect that council member or commissioner Osman has joined us.

And Chowdhury has joined us.

Sorry, thank you all.

Um the clerk will call the roll.

Board member Wandsley.

Aye.

Rainville.

Vita.

I.

Osman.

Aye.

Cashman.

Aye.

Jenkins.

Aye.

Chavez.

Aye.

Koskey.

Aye.

Chowdhury.

Aye.

Pomasano.

Aye.

Vice Chair Chuktai.

Aye.

Chair Payne.

Aye.

There are twelve ayes.

That carries, and the order is adopted.

With that, we've completed the canvassing of election returns.

Next staff will identify specific specific precincts and races to be included in this year's post-election audit.

Ms.

Smith.

Thank you, Chair Payne.

City Charter calls for a post-election review, referred to as the PER for municipal elections.

The purpose of the PER is to verify the accuracy of the tabulation equipment that was used to tabulate votes during the election.

Much like the public accuracy test verifies the accuracy prior to the election.

The PER is a hand count of specified races selected by lot.

The Canvas Board is tasked with setting the date of the PER and bearing witness to the random selection of precincts for the count.

First, November twentieth, twenty twenty five is selected as the date of the PER to begin at nine AM at elections and voter services at nine eighty East Hennepin.

Second, we will now randomly draw and announce the selections of precincts.

We will begin by selecting the multi-seat, which will be either park board or board of estimate and taxation.

The next two precincts that are drawn will be to select two for which there will be a random hand count of council.

Those will be ward eleven, precinct eleven, and ward three, precinct eleven.

Okay, and the next two selected will be the precincts selected for board of estimate and Taxation.

Ward 12, Precinct 7.

And Ward 13, Precinct 12.

With that, I would like to say thank you to Chair Payne, Vice Chair Shugtai, and all members of the board, as well as to Deputy Director Martin for the immense amount of work that went into this election.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Smith.

Thank you, Mr.

Martin.

Mr.

Carl, I understand you have some final remarks you'd like to make.

Now that we've all got our bingo cards out of the way, I would like to um offer again my congratulations and appreciation to the entire team at Elections and Voter Services for pulling off an incredible municipal election, the highest on record for the city of Minneapolis.

A lot of partners, organizations, and departments within the city contributed to that, but certainly under the leadership of Director Smith and Deputy Director Martin.

And also finally to all of you, congratulations for those of you who will be returning in the next term of Council 2026 to 2029.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And with that, and seeing no further business to come before the board, we are adjourned.