Tuesday, Aug. 9 is Primary Election Day; here's a quick recap for Douglas County

DOUGLAS COUNTY — Tuesday, Aug. 9 is Primary Election Day.

Here's a recap of the local races that will on ballots in Douglas County:

• Alexandria School Board, position 3 – Lynne Lommen, Joel Novak, Greg Odell and Shawn Reilly. (The long-time incumbent, Dr. Dean Anderson, decided not to file for re-election.)
• Alexandria School Board, position 4 – incumbent Sandy Susag and challenger Laura Knudsen. (A third candidate, Dennis Conn, is on the ballot but he has withdrawn from the race.)
• Minnesota Senate District 9, which includes part of Douglas County. Two Republicans filed – Jordan Rasmusson of Fergus Falls, who received the party's endorsement, and Nathan Miller of Battle Lake. Remember, in partisan races, voters can only vote for candidates of one party. The winner of the primary will appear on the ballot against DFL-endorsed Cornel Walker of Fergus Falls.

Election results will be published in the Echo Press. The newspaper will have a reporter at the Douglas County Courthouse Tuesday night and results will be reported as the precincts come in with their ballots.
Three precincts in Douglas County are continuing with mail balloting rather than in-person voting. The three precincts are Hudson Township, Moe Township and the city of Millerville.

All registered voters in those precincts will receive a ballot by mail delivered to their residence address. Those who do not receive a ballot by mail must vote by absentee ballot.

The deadline for returning an absentee ballot to the Douglas County Auditor-Treasurer’s Office is 3 p.m. on election day, Aug. 9.

There are other races that will be on the primary ballot — U.S. Representative District 7, governor and lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general.

Here's more information from the Minnesota Secretary of State Office:

On the statewide primary ballot, voters can expect to see state and local partisan and non-partisan races. In partisan races, voters can only vote for candidates of one party. The winners of the partisan races will appear on the Nov. 8 General Election ballot.

Most polling places will be open on Aug. 9 between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., with a small number of rural polling locations opening at 10 a.m. Find your polling location and view voting hours at mnvotes.gov/pollfinder .

This year voters may notice the races they can vote in, and their polling places, have changed due to redistricting. Every 10 years, the boundary lines which divide the state into areas represented by our elected officials, like U.S. Congresspeople or state lawmakers, are re-drawn. These divisions, called districts, are adjusted based on the U.S. Census and other surveys to ensure that they have equal populations and representation in our government.

In Minnesota, new maps of these district lines were produced by a panel of five judges and released to the public on February 15, 2022.

Voters can view their sample ballot at mnvotes.gov/myballot and find their polling place at mnvotes.gov/pollfinder .

As of Monday, August 8, there have been 263,795 requests for absentee ballots, and 128,872 ballots had been accepted in the state.

Voters who have ballots at home can bring them into their county elections office before 3 p.m. on election day or vote in person at their polling place on election day.