Elections director to leave Minneapolis for Anoka County

With the first-ever ranked-choice-voting election looming this fall in Minneapolis, the city's election director is leaving to head up Anoka County elections.

Cindy Reichert is leaving Friday after a demanding tenure marked by preparations for the new voting method and by the distractions and scrutiny of the statewide U.S. Senate recount, which posed extra demands on city election staff. She was in her fourth year with the city.

"It's a natural progression for me," said Reichert, a former St. Louis Park city clerk.

She's leaving her $78,076 per year post as the city nears its drop-dead date for proceeding with the rank-order voting method or aborting the plans for one election cycle. The city is awaiting a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling on a case challenging the rank-order method, which will have voters rank candidates in order of preference.

"We're at a point now where we're ready to go with ranked-choice voting," Reichert said. "There's some logistical challenges, some administrative challenges."

City vote counts in the Senate race were subjected to exacting scrutiny, both in a recount and then as part of the legal battles that followed between the campaigns of Norm Coleman and Al Franken.

Reichert was among elections officials who testified on the handling of ballots. She was grilled about 132 ballots that went missing after being counted in a Dinkytown precinct. They were never located.

The city also got a black eye, undeserved, when a number of media outlets reported incorrectly that 32 city absentee ballots not delivered to precincts spent Election Night in the trunk of a car. Actually, they had been retained by election officials.

The city is weighing its options for replacing Reichert with its first-of-a-kind election looming. One option under discussion is hiring a short-term administrator to see the city through the election.

"She's going to a place with more responsibility and a bigger salary, and I think some of her experiences in Minneapolis have probably made her a really attractive candidate," said Elizabeth Glidden, who chairs the City Council's election committee.

She said Reichert was key in getting the new voting method through a test mini-election last month that showed that the process will work, although it needed some refinement.

Steve Brandt • 612-673-4438