Back in January, Minneapolis residents were holding vigils for Renee Good and Alex Pretti between shifts patrolling local schools and houses of worship, while delivering food to their immigrant neighbors too afraid to leave their homes for fear of being nabbed by federal agents conducting the largest anti-immigrant operation in U.S. history.

At the time, few were thinking about voting in the midterm elections in 10 months. But between Sept. 18 and Nov. 3, Minneapolitans showed up to vote in record numbers, in a dramatic showing of using the ballot as another way to stand up for their community.

Indeed, what happened in the streets of Minneapolis last winter, and how we responded, helped inspire voters across the city, state and even the nation to show up and cast a vote in favor of each other. Together, Americans voted for a more empathetic approach to governing this country in what can be called the Pretti Good election.

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Starting in early October, I got to work as part of the city of Minneapolis’s Early Vote Team, specifically on the Pop-Up Team, which moved an entire polling place to a different location around the city over 12 days. One supervisor described us as the carnival team: We set everything up for one day, operated it at full strength, took it down, then transported it to a new location the next day to do it all over again. It was a fun assignment that provided a unique view into the voting practices of the diverse communities that make up Minneapolis.

We went to most corners of the city — neighborhood parks, college campuses, museums, temporary shelters and community gathering spaces — providing the opportunity to vote early in person.

Guided by the mantra that “we will do everything we can within the law to allow you to vote today,” we prepared to meet whatever unique challenges might come up at each location. On or near campuses, there were higher numbers of new or updated voter registrations, so we used student housing lists to confirm the voter’s address. Sites near non-English-speaking communities had additional Somali, Oromo or Spanish-speaking staff to help immigrant citizens exercise their right to vote.

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We set up polling places at two shelters, utilizing Minnesota’s law allowing someone to vouch for another eligible voter who might not have the paperwork that more stably housed voters might have. In vote-rich neighborhoods where most voters were preregistered with long histories of casting their ballot, more computers, voting stations and ballot tabulators were brought in while the team prepared for more active line management. 

Many formal and informal neighborhood democracy defense groups were encouraging people to vote early to buttress their votes against possible federal shenanigans. Yet, with many people used to voting at their neighborhood polling place on Election Day, I wasn’t confident that people would find their way to our roving polling places. But they did. A lucky few just stumbled across us while going about their day, while others read the city’s elections mailer. And an impressive number learned about it from their family friends, and neighborhood chat groups. As we got closer to Nov. 3, we saw more people traveling across town to find us, all so they could bank their vote by Election Day.

And vote they did. Each day, Minneapolis broke records for early voting. Utilizing absentee ballots or voting at one of the four early vote sites, 76,483 ballots were cast early this election, over 30,000 higher than the last mid-term election in 2022, and 97% of the turnout in the 2024 presidential election. (Boasting here that my home precinct, 12-1, which runs along the Mississippi River by East Lake Street, had the highest percentage of early votes with 45% of registered voters voting early.)

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While each pop-up location reached a different part of our city, what was consistent across them was the appreciation for the opportunity to vote early, the confidence that votes would be counted, and voters’ enthusiasm to have their voice in the form of a ballot be part of the collective decision-making about who will represent them — us — in policy-making bodies at all levels of government. 

While no partisan politics are allowed in polling places (“if it’s on the ballot, it’s not allowed on your body”), it was clear that voters were motivated by what happened in Minneapolis last winter. Many voters wore their motivating values into the ballot box, as evidenced by their pro-neighbor and pro-immigrant T-shirts. And so many Rebel Loons, including a couple with matching rainbow glow-in-the-dark Rebel Loon tattoos. 

But perhaps the most moving display of the hope that Minneapolitans brought to their act of voting was the number of “I Voted” stickers that people placed on the memorials of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. As one Minneapolis voter told the Guardian near the sticker-covered lamppost at Pretti’s memorial on Nicollet Avenue in the Whittier neighborhood, they wanted to “come pay some respects and attach my vote to what happened here.”

Cara Letofsky is a longtime Minneapolis resident working at the intersection of community organizing and policy making. She writes “Field Notes from America,” a newsletter about her observations on the American experiment through the lens of economic inequality, systemic racism and history. 

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