From my colleague Bill McAuliffe, who’s been following up on word of ballot mixups that affected school referenda in the northwest Twin Cities suburbs:

At least three voters in the Osseo school district won’t be heard on three school issues that should have been on their ballot.

Two voters in one Plymouth precinct and an absentee voter in Brooklyn Park apparently cast ballots that came from the stack intended for their neighbors, who live in different school districts.

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You can’t use a letter from your landlord as proof of residency if it isn’t addressed to you. That’s the message from Minneapolis election officials to about 300 residents of the Chateau co-op housing complex at the University of Minnesota campus.

Some of those would-be voters contacted the Election Protection Coalition hotline (866-OUR-VOTE). Mike Dean, executive director of Common Cause Minnesota who’s part of the coalition, said his group took the students’ case to the office of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. State officials ruled that if the landlord revised the letter to address it to individual students, they could use it to help with registration, Dean said. So that’s what happened.

Dean is encouraging as many people who find themselves turned away at the polls to call the coalition hotline (866-OUR-VOTE). “We’re hearing about a lot of instances of people being turned away for reasons that are not legitimate.” Dean blamed it on mistakes by election judges, rather than any malicious intent.

As of 5 p.m., Our Vote Live, a project of the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition, has logged 80 reports of voting-related problems in Minnesota. They follow no particular pattern - complaints about polling place access, electioneering close to the polls, improper requests for photo IDs, among them. By comparison, the group has logged 1,753 reported problems in New York, 1,049 in Pennsylvania, 806 in California and 504 in Florida by 5 p.m.

A rolling political billboard and barker came a bit too close to the polls in the experience of some voters. Here’s voter D. Paul reporting from Minneapolis:

At the Marcy Open School polling location in Minneapolis, I believe that supporters of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment were blatantly violating the law by driving by the polling location with a vehicle equipped with speakers and a HUGE “VOTE YES” billboard attached to the roof urging people to vote yes for the amendment. I imagine they pulled the same stunt at other polling locations. Is it not illegal to do things like that?

Electioneering within 100 feet of the polling location is a no-no. Same goes for political buttons, which at least one voter at Redeemer Bible Church in Minnetonka saw in the inner polling sanctum. Given the hordes of voters, the judges could be forgiven, I think, for not catching every fashion violation.

Post a message here if you’ve seen other infringements on the no-politicking zone.