by Dennis Dalman
Although the Feb. 13 deadline has passed for advanced voting registration in the Tuesday, March 5 Presidential Nomination Primary, St. Joseph residents can still register in person on March 5 and then vote at St. Joseph’s two polling places.
To register on election day, please bring to your polling place proof of your identity and proof of your street address.
What is a PNP? It’s a way for voters to express their preference for a presidential candidate to be nominated at each nominating convention of the three “major” parties – Democrat, Republican, Legal Marijuana Now.
The PNP replaces the former preferential “straw polls” that were taken at party caucus meetings in which caucus-goers could fill in their preferences for their party’s presidential candidate.
In a PNP at the polls, a voter must ask for a ballot for the party of their choice and then vote for just one name on that one ballot. They are not allowed to “cross-vote” among two or three of the available party ballots. And only one office, that of the presidency, will be on each ballot.
Voters’ choices of which political ballot they chose will not be made public, though the presidential choices (without names of voters) will be tabulated and known to election officials and to the chairperson of the political party whose ballot a voter selected.
The polls will be open from 7 a.m.-8 p.m.
Polling places
The Precinct 1 polling place will be inside Heritage Hall at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 12 Minnesota St. W. That polling place is for all residents living west of College Avenue/CR 2 and those living north of CR 75.
The Precinct 2 polling place will be inside the St. Joseph Government Center, 75 Callaway St. E. All residents living south of CR 75 and east of College Avenue/CR 2 will vote at that polling place.
Voters must be 18 years or older.
If anyone is uncertain as to where their polling place is, they can go to mnvotes.org to type in their home address to determine for sure the correct polling place. Write-in votes will be allowed on the ballots.
If anyone has questions about the voting process, the question can be directed to St. Joseph City Clerk Kayla Klein at 320-229-9421 or at kklein@cityofstjoseph.com.
The following are the three ballots and the names of the candidates (in alphabetical order) who will be on the ballots as voter choices. (Please note even though some of the following candidates have dropped out of their races, their names will still be on the ballots, which have already been printed.)
Democratic-Farmer Labor candidates:
Joseph R. Biden Jr., Gabriel Cornejo, Eban Cambridge, Frankie Lozado, Jason Palmer, Dean Phillips, Armando “Mando” Perez-Serrato, Cenk Uygur, Marianne Williamson.
Republican candidates:
Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Donald J. Trump.
The Legal Marijuana Now candidates:
Edward Forchion, Krystal Gabel, Rudy Reyes, Dennis Schuller, Vermin Supreme.
