It’s (finally!) Election Day: Make your voice heard

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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More than 76 million Americans — including around 1 million Minnesotans — have already voted. For the rest, Tuesday is the day to have your voice heard and vote counted.

And it will be counted, despite disinformation emanating from foreign and domestic sources souring some citizens’ trust in America’s election season. In fact, despite an unprecedented pandemic and endemic doubt cast on and beyond Election Day 2020, that presidential year vote is considered the most secure ever. Additional safeguards should make this year’s voting protocols even more protected, especially here at home.

“From an administration standpoint, the [voting] numbers are good; the level of calm is good,” said Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon. “My twin goals or wishes for this election cycle are high turnout and low drama, and so far we have indications that we’ll get mostly both of those things.”

Despite deep divisions that afflict every state, Minnesotans can agree on this: Our consistently high turnout, which usually ranks in the top three if not leads the nation, reflects a healthy, civil and civic ethos.

Among additional reasons for the impressive participation are “good laws, including some good new laws, which are really pro-voter and pro-access, while balancing security at the same time,” said Simon. These “good, clear laws” include very specific processes on only allowing legal votes. In fact, added Simon, a study spanning the years since 2015 reported that of the nearly 13.4 million total votes cast in Minnesota over that span there were only three noncitizens who voted. That’s three too many, Simon is quick to clarify, but overall “a microscopically low number.”

That kind of efficacy and efficiency belies the worries some have about America’s elections. And unfortunately, just like so many other aspects of the current cultural, social and political environment, the confidence levels are split among partisan lines. In fact, according to a new Pew Research poll released last week, while 73% of voters say the election “will be run and administered well or somewhat well,” only 57% of those voting Republican in the presidential race say so compared to 90% of those voting for the Democrat.

While disinformation helps fuel this pessimism, facts don’t support it. Especially when resource support on the local, county and state level is so significant. There are about 3,000 polling places in Minnesota with an average of about 1,000 eligible voters per site, said Simon, who added that since so many vote early, and because Election Day voters spread out throughout the day, few have to wait in the long lines seen in some other states.

That’s not only convenient but cuts down on the spread of misinformation, according to recent research.

“What we found is the operational efficiency on Election Day voting administration has a spillover effect, or long-lasting effect, not just on the immediate experience on Election Day — it also will shape voters’ perceptions about the voting system or the integrity of the voting system,” said Muer Yang, a professor at the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas. Yang, speaking of his research conducted with colleagues at the University of Iowa and the Stevens Institute of Technology, said that “in short, the longer voting lines experienced on Election Day can trigger more ‘fake news’ spread.”

Minnesota’s shorter lines and long list of voting safeguards should thwart such a phenomenon. Instead, they should inspire confidence and a relative rarity in these tense times: a celebration rather than a denigration of voting, which is the fundamental, essential element in our democracy.

So if you haven’t already, get out there and vote on Election Day. And whatever the results, hope that elected officials work as effectively as the system that selected them.