Your Vote, Your Voice

Smiling person wearing "I Voted" sticker

Engage with Hennepin County Elections

Hennepin County Elections is committed to serving voters through free, fair, and accessible elections. When you vote, you make your voice heard, hold elected officials accountable, and impact important issues that affect your community.

We aim to use this page to answer your questions about elections and show what our partner organizations are doing to reach voters, particularly within communities that have historically experienced barriers to voting.

Check out our resources to become a more informed voter!

Engage with Hennepin County Elections

Hennepin County Elections is committed to serving voters through free, fair, and accessible elections. When you vote, you make your voice heard, hold elected officials accountable, and impact important issues that affect your community.

We aim to use this page to answer your questions about elections and show what our partner organizations are doing to reach voters, particularly within communities that have historically experienced barriers to voting.

Check out our resources to become a more informed voter!

  • New accessible machine available at all voting locations in 2025

    Hennepin County Elections is excited to announce that the ExpressVote, an accessible ballot marking device, will now be available at all voting locations in the county.

    Minnesota law requires all voting locations in the state to have an accessible ballot marking device. Hennepin County is committed to providing a device that is secure and easy to use and allows voters with disabilities to fill out their ballot independently and privately.

    “Accessible ballot marking device” is a mouthful, but what it really means is that voters will be able to fill out (“mark”) their ballot using a touchscreen instead of a pen. The ExpressVote also includes a Braille-equipped touchpad for voters with vision disabilities. Voters can also adjust the size of the text on the screen, change the screen contrast, and have their ballot read to them via headphones.

    Minnesota continues to use exclusively paper ballots, so it’s important to note that the ExpressVote is NOT an electronic voting machine and does NOT store or tabulate votes. After a voter makes their selections on the ExpressVote screen, the machine prints out a paper ballot that must then be fed into the ballot tabulator for their vote to be counted, just like every other ballot.

    While the ExpressVote is designed to improve the voting experience for voters with disabilities and accessibility needs, the machines are open to all voters. Just ask an election judge to show you how it works!

    We piloted the ExpressVote in limited cities during the 2024 election season, and we’re now rolling it out to all of Hennepin County. We encourage you to check it out when you vote in 2025!

    For more information about the ExpressVote (including a how-to video of all its accessibility features), visit https://www.hennepin.us/residents/elections/accessible-voting.

    Image of the ExpressVote headlined "Get to know the ExpressVote." Images of headphones, touchpad and ballot card with similar distractions to the text.

  • 2024 Contract Program Highlights

    Throughout 2024, Hennepin County Elections contracted with 35 local organizations to provide voter outreach and engagement to the communities they serve. These contracts ranged in amounts up to $20,000 and lasted from a few months to the entire year.

    Over the year, the contracted organizations held nearly 73,000 face-to-face conversations and helped more than 22,500 residents register to vote or pledge to register to vote. In total, their efforts reached more than 442,000 people within Hennepin County.

    The organizations used a variety of unique strategies to engage their communities in voting and provide information about elections, including:

    • African Career Education & Resources: Developed a team of 15 community leaders and volunteers who went door-to-door registering voters

    • Catholic Charities Twin Cities: Hosted at least 2 events at each of their program sites, with 19 of those events between September and November

    • Hired: Collaborated with ACER, Ayada Leads, and CAPI to host 5 candidate forums before the August primary election and the November general election

    • League of Women Voters Minnesota: Led an initiative to visit 88 high schools in Hennepin County (public and private schools) for National Voter Registration Day, where they reached more than 45,000 students

    • Native American Community Development Institute: Collaborated with 6 Native artists to commission art that was used to inspire and engage the Native community through visual art messaging

    • Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment: Created informational videos in English, American Sign Language, Spanish, Urdu, Arabic, Somali, and Oromo, along with nonpartisan voter guides

    • United Senior Lao-Americans: Made more than 22,000 phone calls, knocked on 3,155 doors, and assisted nearly 730 individuals to the polls

    • OutFront Minnesota: Hosted a Drag-Out-The-Vote event at LUSH theater in Minneapolis to engage LGBT+ voters and allies

    • ShelettaMakesMeLaugh: Produced and aired podcasts about the importance of voting, featuring guests such as Hollies Winston (mayor of Brooklyn Park) and Kelsey Joson (disability advocate who hosted a session at the Southdale Library called “Voter 101: Voting with a Disability”)

    • YouthLink: Held a weekly voter registration table at their drop-in center and created a video for young voters (made by the youth on their advisory council)

    • Asian American Business Resilience Network: Hosted events at 5 local senior centers targeting AAPI voters, assisted seniors to develop voting plans, provided IT support and translation resources to individual voters

Page last updated: 06 Nov 2025, 10:35 AM