Voter Protection

In 2024 Minnesota had 3.3 million votes cast

with 20,000 rejected

for a rejected ballot rate of 0.62%

Top 3 Reasons for Ballot Rejection

All Reasons for Ballot Rejection

The number and rate of rejected ballots was remarkably steady from 2020 which had 20,240 rejected ballots with a rejected ballot rate just two thousands lower in 2026 - 0.6146% compared to 0.6165% in 2024.

Mapping Rejected Ballots

The MN totals for rejected ballot counts are state-wide totals - not broken down by precinct.

Our data model calculates precinct-level rejected ballots by subtracting the "Total Number Voted" from the "Total Votes" reported. Our total of 18,322 is 91% of the state's 20,172 total, a difference of 1,850 votes.

Sizing up MN Counties

County Count
Precinct Count
Voters Registered election day 7AM
% of total on election day
Voters registered same day
Total Registered = Voters Registered election day 7AM + Voters registered same day
% of Total Registered (shows impact of same-day voter registration)

Let's look at MN Congressional Districts (CD's) sorted by Total Registered descending:

We can see that CD8 has the highest total registered voters with 526K compared to the minimum in CD5 of 468K.

We can see the CD's are pretty grouped by looking at the most-right column - % of total (also column 5).

Now we're going to add rejected ballots to this table:

Sorted by Rejected Ballot Rate

Rejected Ballots = The difference between total voted and votes counted.

With an average rejected ballot rate of 0.56%, we can see CD3 has the highest rate at 0.64%.

CD1 ranks 3rd highest rejected ballot rate.

Note there does not appear to be a correlation between same-day registration and rejected ballot rates.

Let's look at the total rejected ballots and rejected ballot rate by CD:

We can see that CD1 had 2,273 rejected ballots in 2024 with a 0.58 rejected ballot rate which is right around the 0.56% average.

We can know that CD's relatively healthy rate of rejected ballots is along with a high rate of same-day registration, shown above.

CD1 by County:

We can see Nobles and Jackson Counties have the highest rates of rejected ballots.

Winona County by Precinct:

We can see low rejected ballot rates - as low as one per precinct many times - and higher rates in the most densely populated precincts as expected. Targeting the improvement of rejected ballot rates should thus not be geographic but instead an overall refresher on ballot hygiene - especially focusing on the Top 3 reasons for ballot rejection as they account for over half of rejected ballots. A 1-2-3 checklist to print and share on social media would be a great idea.

Registration Rates

MN population data groups is at the County level with ages in buckets of four years starting from zero.

Voting age of 18 is in bucket "15-19" which makes for less precise counts of voting aged-residents - but does so consistently wherever population is used.

Registration Rates by County:

Winona County has the 6th lowest voter registration rate at 76.65% compared to an average of 84.37%. Nobles County has the lowest registration rate.

Projecting Voter Counts if all Lower than Average Counties had 84.37% Registration Rate.

This table projects the registered voters if the County were at the average rate of 84.37%
This table includes Counties with below average rates of registration only - their average is 81.36%
Their drop-off from average voter counts are shown in the final column - a total of 52,913
Adjusting for imprecise age: Looking at columns 1 and 2 we can see Winona has a high rate of population aged 15-19 but not the highest, and the number is larger than the projected voter drop-off so that figure seems reasonable
Even rounding down very conservatively to half the total, we can estimate 25,000 voters as a reasonable goal of improving where rates are under average.
Notably, WSU precinct WINONA 3-1 had both the maximums for changes in DFL and Republican votes. The young people are voting.
Winona County has a projected voter drop-off of 3,383 - we could adjust down 10% to account for the 15-19 age bucket conservatively and get to an estimate of roughly 3,000 potential voters in Winona.

Putting it together

By putting together insights on rejected ballots and registration rates, we can get a better understanding of our County. Winona County has a slightly elevated rejected ballot rate and a relatively low voter registration rate.

Knowing the top reasons for rejected ballots, we prioritize that in conversations with new voters.

Winona County precincts WINONA 4-3 and ST CHARLES are going to be the most dense precincts with higher than average rejected ballot rates, making those good places to target with training on top/all reasons for rejected ballots.

We can see roughly 45,000 votes that can be targeted for protection in MN between 20,000 rejected ballots and the roughly 25,000 voters outside the average registration rate.