What to know about Minnesota election results today

Polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday, and then the waiting begins for anxious candidates and election watchers.

Vote counts, which can be found on the Minnesota Star Tribune results page, will show who’s leading in the Minneapolis and St. Paul mayoral races, in municipal and school board elections around the state, and in two special state Senate races, in Woodbury and Wright County.

Here’s what you need to know about the election results and when to expect them.

Not immediately at 8:01 p.m. But it usually doesn’t take too long before results start trickling in, often precinct by precinct as they get reported to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Likely yes for many races, but not all. The Star Tribune will mark race-winners when all results are in and the winner’s margin is above a certain threshold (more on that below).

It’s normal for different races to come in at different times because votes are counted locally in a purposefully decentralized process overseen by election judges from both major parties.

When margins are razor-thin, or in cases of ranked-choice voting — used in Minneapolis, St. Paul and some suburbs — it can take longer.

Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, St. Louis Park and Minnetonka use ranked-choice voting to determine winners, but will only transmit first-choice ballots to the Secretary of State’s Office on Nov. 4.

Unless a candidate gets more than 50% of first-round votes, ranked-choice voting requires a reallocation process to count voters’ second and third choices (or sometimes even more) in multiple rounds of tabulation.

While St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter cleared the over-50% hurdle on the first round in both 2017 and 2021 and was announced the winner on election night, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was announced the winner the day after Election Day both years after rounds of tabulation.

The results that populate our website come from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office.

If a ranked-choice election goes beyond the first round, reallocation data comes from cities as they finish tabulating the outcomes in subsequent days.

In cases where a race is too close to mark a winner on election night, a winner will be marked if the losing candidate has conceded or the winner is officially identified.

In races with ranked-choice voting, winners may be marked if a candidate in the race is well over the threshold to be elected for that race. If vote reallocation is necessary, we will mark winners in those races once they are identified by the respective municipalities in subsequent days.