Blue Earth County elections administrator outlines new chain-of-custody plan for 2026 election cycle

Blue Earth County’s elections administrator led a 30-minute online training for local clerks to review a new state requirement that each county maintain a chain-of-custody plan for elections. The administrator said the plan “is a document that helps drive how we secure our election and how we document our election,” and that the county will provide a public version on request while keeping security-sensitive details redacted.

The plan, the administrator said, applies to any county election that includes state, county, municipal, school district or special district contests on the ballot and must be updated with the Secretary of State’s office by June 1 in years with a regularly scheduled state election. The presenter cited the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act (Chapter 13) to explain why sections containing equipment serial numbers, form coding and similar operational details are treated as security data and withheld from public release.

The training laid out the plan’s structure: public cover pages describing responsibilities and review schedules, and restricted sections for security-sensitive procedures. The administrator used a ballot-management section as an example, calling paper ballots “our backbone” and describing lifecycle controls from vendor production through a 22-month records-retention schedule and eventual destruction. Sample templates, logs and sign-offs in the appendix are intended to create a verifiable paper trail and standardize documentation across teams.

Mail and absentee voting (including UOCAVA) are covered in a detailed envelope-voting section that spans the entire production-to-tabulation lifecycle; the administrator said that section includes multiple accuracy checks, storage and retention steps and covers a 46-day period leading up to the election. The presenter emphasized that certain absentee/mail-ballot procedures are administered at the county level and cannot be overridden by a locally adopted plan where state law requires county administration.

Other sections address early in-person voting (temporary locations and courthouse voting), programming of tabulators and media sticks for reporting unofficial results, and equipment management (polling place tabulators, central/high-speed counters and assisted voting devices), with testing, security procedures and controls documented. A separate records-and-data section covers rosters and poll pads that contain protected voter information and explains how access and retention are handled.

The administrator closed by saying clerks do not have to change practices unless they opt to adopt a separate local plan, and that clerks must complete certification (an online form will be provided) to receive training credit toward required hours (4 hours standard; 5 hours for new clerks). An additional in-person clerk class was announced for the following week, and participants were invited to submit questions via chat or follow up with county contacts.

The training did not record any motions, formal votes or policy adoptions; it was an informational session to explain compliance, documentation and operational controls for the county’s chain-of-custody plan.