Secretary of State Steve Simon says Minnesota “can do better” than about seven percent voter turnout in Tuesday’s primary election, and adds the August date “is not serving us well”. He says, “August, particularly middle August, is a time when so many of us are trying to squeeze the last drops out of summer, and we’re not particularly paying a whole lot of attention to politics.” Simon is pushing for primary elections to be held in June. He says although there’s no perfect date, he thinks June would be better than when the primary is now.
Simon says Minnesota could hold its primary elections even earlier than June — say in May or even April — but there could be potential pitfalls with filing dates for candidates, political party conventions and the legislative session. He says some change is in order, and hopefully turnout figures from Tuesday’s primary will fuel that discussion. Simon predicts there will be a proposal during the next legislative session.
Here’s the full conversation MNN’s Bill Werner had with Secretary of State Simon: