ST.PAUL — Susan Kalin, 82, remembers lining up at the polls at the Barton School in Minneapolis behind famous local musician Tiny Tim. Imitating him strumming the ukelele, he said that Tiny Tim had his ukelele on even during voting.

“He was a very strange person. “It’s very strange,” said Kalin. “But anyway, he was in line in front of me, and I remember the appeal of going to the polls and getting in line and talking to people, so you didn’t necessarily have to talk politics, you just talked.”

Kalin says he has favored absentee voting in recent years, partly because of COVID-19, but mostly because the polls don’t feel like they used to.

Abby Dawkins, 87, said she, too, votes in every election and has voted by mail in recent years, but for different reasons.

“I didn’t know what the weather was going to be like,” Dawkins said. “We don’t drive. Even though they were offering a tour here, I thought it would be much easier to sit in my living room and vote. It seemed logical, easy, and yes, painless.

Mary Murphy / Forum News Service

Kalin and Dawkins, St. They live at the Marvella retirement community in St. Paul and have both only been there a few years. Marvella offers residents the opportunity to go to the polls, but not all senior homes do the same.

Nick Strunk, a voter support specialist for the Secretary of State’s Office, said the office is seeing an increase in questions from the older population as election day approaches. Strunk said many of the questions come from people who don’t have family members to drive them to the polls or who live in facilities that don’t have the capacity to assist with voting.

“These are a population that still faces increasingly higher barriers to obtaining these resources,” Strunk said.

Minnesota Department of State in 2018

recorded a small decrease

The turnout rate for voters over the age of 80 is around 60%. Additionally, it was noted that the majority of those who voted absentee before COVID-19 were in the 70+ age group.

Strunk says he often directs those inquiries to local elected officials who can point out options for voters. He said another program offered by the state is the “Health Facilities Voting Program”, which is especially valid for nursing homes, hospitals and residential treatment centers.

“This is a tool for county election officials or local election officials, whether it be the auditor or a full-time city clerk, to then directly coordinate and manage the administration of absentee voting to that population,” he said.

Strunk said judges from both parties were dispatched to handle absentee voting duties at the facilities to ensure voter integrity.

As election security talks approach November 5, one concern is the potential for “vote harvesting” from these “vulnerable” populations. in Duluth,

A woman recently forged a ballot for her mother,

The man who died in August claiming his mother had hoped to vote for Trump.

Dawkins says he doesn’t care much about election security when it comes to absentee voting.

“Instead of being filled with doubt and anxiety about it, I decided to trust that it would work,” he said.

Strunk said he has had several election security conversations with members of those communities.

“It’s generally more about security issues or concerns about security, not from a lens of taking advantage of the situation, but just general concerns about general security,” he said.

Strunk said overall he doesn’t see this as a major concern among members of the older community and encouraged people to look to Minnesota’s election security laws for more confidence.

Kalin said he is concerned about his own population, but is equally concerned about other vulnerable populations during the elections.

“I think there are a lot of populations that need that much attention,” he said. “So, what’s going to happen to all these homeless people? What about these people who were unjustly imprisoned? “You know, they couldn’t vote because of their false imprisonment for all these years.”

Dawkins said an additional resource he noticed during assisted living was the increased community. He says there are all kinds of lectures, tutorials and discussion opportunities at Marvella.

Mary Murphy / Forum News Service

Strunk said his office has held meetings like the one Dawkins described, partnering with organizations like AARP and Prespretarian Homes to extend nonpartisan resources on voting to the elderly population.

“I or my colleagues will go to assisted living or high-rise association meetings or hold an event where I will have the resources and engage with a short presentation or just some type of conversation with a few dozen community members of the facility,” he said.

Strunk said he observed, as Dawkins and Kalin did, that older generations are more likely to choose to vote by absentee ballot and that voters now have the option to vote.

automatically retrieve absences

votes in every election.

Dawkins said women are really on his mind this election.

“The whole issue is choice and women, women’s health, women’s right to choose,” he said. “Who will take care of them and how they will be taken care of is vital. What happened to the role of women that had been fought so hard for since women had the right to vote? “It is unconscionable for someone to choose for me what happens to my body.”

Kalın said that as a former teacher, he was interested in education at the local level and the book ban at the national level.

Mary Murphy / Forum News Service

Dawkins and Kalin talked about the election with candidates Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater and recalled how tense the election was.

“Now that seems very kind, doesn’t it?” Dawkins asked Kalin.

Kalin agrees: “At least as far as I remember, it wasn’t this intense, malicious or poisonous.”

Kalin said he remembers being at his cabin in Balsam Lake when he learned that Hubert Humphrey had won the vice presidency. He said he and his cousins ​​took out their pots and pans and had a parade.

“We were remembering that when Tim Walz was nominated this year because he had the same feeling, you know, that hometown kid made it,” he said.

Kalın predicted what he would do and what would happen if the election went as he hoped.

“I’m going to jump for joy. I’m gonna drink all night, grab those pots and pans, and we’re gonna walk down this hallway. “My shoulders will drop… your bursitis will go away,” Kalin said, pointing to his friend’s sore hip.

Kalın said that if the elections do not go as he wants, “I have a list of nine countries I want to go to on my phone.”