Background:
Section 601(a) of the Social Security Act, as added by section 5001 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), established the Coronavirus Relief Fund (Fund) and appropriated $150 billion to the Fund. Under the CARES Act, the Fund is to be used to make payments for specified uses to states and certain local governments; the District of Columbia and U.S. Territories; and Tribal governments. Hennepin County received a direct payment out of the Fund from the U.S. Treasury.
The CARES Act provides that money from the Fund may only be used to cover costs that:
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are necessary expenditures incurred due to the public health emergency with respect to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19); and
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were not accounted for in the budget most recently approved as of March 27, 2020 (the date of enactment of the CARES Act) for the State or government; and
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were incurred during the period that begins on March 1, 2020 and ends on December 30, 2020.
Allowable expenditures include expenses for public safety measures undertaken in response to COVID-19, such as acquisition and distribution of sanitizing products and personal protective equipment, disinfection of public areas and other facilities, payroll expenses for public employees whose services are substantially dedicated to mitigating or responding to the public health emergency, and other COVID-19-related expenses reasonably necessary to the function of government.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, we need to ensure that Hennepin County residents who are eligible to vote can do so safely, and we need to implement public health measures that will mitigate the risk to County elections staff. Absentee balloting and pre-registration are effective strategies in limiting the number of voters coming to polling places on Election Day. Encouraging Hennepin County residents to vote absentee through the mail instead of in person is a key strategy in reducing COVID-19 risk to voters and elections workers. In order to effectuate this strategy of maximizing absentee balloting and reducing the number of voters who choose to vote in person, additional resources are needed to communicate the absentee balloting and on-line voter registration process and rules. Postcards with basic absentee voting and voter registration information, mailers on how to request an absentee ballot, and voter guides will be mailed to Hennepin County households and registered voters. Traditional and digital media campaigns will also be used as well as community organization partnership agreements to reach as wide an audience as possible.
Additional resources are needed beyond those budgeted for the 2020 Primary and General Election to manage, process and count an anticipated unprecedented number of absentee ballots. While the Elections Division had already planned for an increasing trend in the number of absentee ballots the Hennepin County Absentee Ballot Center would need to process for the 2020 General election – from 90,000 ballots in 2016 to a previously anticipated 105,000 ballots for 2020 –new projections due to COVID-19 response add an additional 45,000 to 255,000 absentee ballots for a new total of 150,000 to 360,000 ballots to be processed by Hennepin County staff. Additional funding is needed for additional staff hours to process each absentee ballot including processing applications, preparing ballot mailings, examining returned ballots for accuracy and security, and counting ballots. Funding is also required for increased supply costs for additional envelopes, ballot printing, and postage.
Additional resources are needed to recruit temporary election staff members and election judges. The existing election judge workforce tends to be older than the average workforce, with a high percentage of veteran election judges over the age of 65. Many election judges may fall into multiple high-risk categories for COVID-19. The pool of returning election judges who are willing to serve in polling places on election day is therefore expected to decrease dramatically and must be supplemented by a robust recruitment campaign to source new election judges in order to avoid polling place closures. Resources are needed to acquire personal protective equipment for election workers and for voters who need it, and to provide signage and other queueing aides to implement social distancing measures in polling places.