Recount Civics Test

Basically most people know less about the principles of government than their favorite sport, like this civics test shows. I thought that I would do my own true or false civics test on knowledge from the recount for your entertainment. Actually these are very tough questions, so knowing any of them means you are really paying attention!

1. True or False: Every valid ballot cast by a Minnesota voter has two sides with writing.

2. True or False: Next election if you want your vote for the lizard people to count proudly, sign your name on the ballot.

3. True or False: On election day, when you vote, accidentally filling in the wrong circle is bad because there is nothing that can be done.

4. True or False: One needs an ID to register for voting.

5. True or False: All write-in votes are photographed by the counting machine and electronically sent in.

6. True or False: No people dead on this election day were allowed to vote in the last election.

7. True or False: All Minnesota votes were counted on election day.

8. True or False: Every Minnesota precinct uses the same type and brand of counting machine.

9. True or False: You must be able to read the ballot to vote.

10. True or False: People in college, must use their permanent legal address, not their college address, as the basis for a place to vote.

All the answers are false!

1. True or False: Every valid ballot cast by a Minnesota voter in has two sides with writing.

   False! Military personnel can fax in a vote that shows up as two one sided sheets. This is a valid vote. To optically scan the vote, the judges transfer the vote to a normal ballot labeled "Duplicate" with a sequential number. The original ballot goes into an envelope labeled "Duplicates" and the judge copied ballot goes with the rest of the ballots.

2. True or False: True or False: Next election if you want your vote for the lizard people to count proudly, sign your name on the ballot.

   False! Signing your name invalidates the vote because of old law that was meant to stop people from being paid for voting a certain way.

3. True or False: On election day, when you vote, accidentally filling in the wrong circle is bad because there is nothing that can be done.

   False! If you go up to the election judge, you can get a fresh new ballot to vote on. The judge does have to do paperwork on every spoiled ballot, because the numbers of ballots are tightly controlled.

4. True or False: One needs an ID to register for voting.

   False! One can register on voting day by simply having an already registered neighbor vouch for you. One registered person can vouch for up to 15 people in one election from the same precinct.

5. True or False: All write-in votes are photographed by the counting machine and electronically sent in.

   False! All write-in votes are sorted by the counting machine into a separate bin, where the judges count the manual write-ins at the end of the day.

6. True or False: No people dead on this election day were allowed to vote in the last election.

   False! A person could have cast an early absentee ballot and then died before election day.

7. True or False: All Minnesota votes were counted on election day.

   False! Actually some absentee ballots were counted the next day, because of timing and transportation issues. Also, since many judges were processing the ballots late into the night, there was still could have been work going on in some precincts after midnight.

8. True or False: Every Minnesota precinct uses the same type and brand of counting machine.

   False! We have multiple generations of counting machines including Eagle and Diebold.

9. True or False: You must be able to read the ballot to vote.

   False! A judge can help anyone vote who has difficulty reading the ballot for any reason.

10. True or False: People in college, must use their permanent legal address not their college address as the basis for a place to vote.

    False! College students can register and vote in either place, however the student must only vote in one place.