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By Dana Ferguson, Minnesota Public Radio News

Jennifer DeJournett put more than 38,000 miles on her SUV as she crisscrossed the state trying to convince conservatives to do something that had fallen out of favor within her party: Vote early.

In 2022, DeJournett was campaign director for GOP state auditor candidate Ryan Wilson. And now she serves as state executive director for American Majority, a national group that works to train conservative candidates.

After Wilson came very close to unseating DFL State Auditor Julie Blaha last year — losing by less than half a percentage point — DeJournett set off to counter misinformation about early voting.

“It is personal for me in a way that it isn’t for anybody else, because, but for bad information, there were sufficient votes there,” she said. “The outcome would have been different.”

Her push is taking place during an off-year election where only local offices are up. But DeJournett and others think it could pay dividends as the consequential 2024 campaign arrives.

At book clubs, rotary and local GOP meetings, she’s explained voting options and gone head-to-head with fellow conservatives who have questioned the legitimacy of early voting.

“I’ve run into bad actors who continue to propagate bad information,” DeJournett said. “And I have stood in the gap really to tell those people to stop. Their behavior, their conduct, their words, is causing people to not trust voting.”

A Gallup survey last year found a significant partisan split in voters’ interest in early or absentee voting. While Republicans and Democrats reported nearly identical levels of interest historically, progressive voters’ interest in voting before Election Day has surged compared to conservatives.

Some voters have latched onto inaccurate information spread in recent years by top Republican leaders, including former President Donald Trump. Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump incorrectly alleged that millions of absentee ballots were sent without voters’ request and that some voting options adapted to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 were a hoax.

But even Trump, the GOP front-runner for the 2024 nomination, has changed his tune. This summer, he endorsed a new early vote campaign from the Republican National Committee.

“We must defeat the far left at their own game,” he said in July.

Early voting, whether in person or by a mailed absentee ballot, has grown in popularity since Minnesota expanded the window for it and did away with requirements that people have a valid excuse.

Before the law change in 2013, around 267,000 absentee ballots were counted in the prior election. In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, the state accepted 1.9 accepted million absentee and mail ballots. And last year, when COVID-19 concerns had eased considerably, it accepted 673,000.

After watching Democrats make more-efficient use of the tool, state and national Republicans plan to encourage early voting and track absentee votes to ensure that voters who request them send them back in time. They said the campaigns could help ensure voters don’t get left on the sidelines.

“We are encouraging people to think of this as an election of season kind of and vote whenever it’s convenient for you,” Minnesota GOP Chair David Hann said.

Hann said the party continues to advocate for more identification requirements to cast a ballot and disagrees with Minnesota’s recent moves to automate voter registration.

The extra nudge could make a difference in local and school board races on the ballot next month. But the organizing efforts could have an impact later on, too.

Campaign leaders from both parties said early voting is helpful because it gives them a sense of their support going into Election Day and allows them to focus resources on voters who are undecided.

Organizations like Minnesota Freedom Club, Minnesota Voters Alliance and Restore Minnesota have been hard at work drumming up support for early voting this time, through training sessions and absentee drives.

“We’re using our influence to drive more voters to the November 2023 school district elections. Why? Because more voters will dilute the controlling influence of an elite few and that’s good for Minnesota,” Minnesota Voters Alliance leaders wrote to members in a July email.

MPR News left messages with the Minnesota Voters Alliance that weren’t returned ahead of publication.

“There are a lot of low-level municipal and school board races that definitely don’t necessarily always bring a lot of attention. But it’s really, I think, a dress rehearsal for next year,” said Education Minnesota President Denise Specht. “They’re honing their tactics. They’re honing their lists. They’re practicing messages for the election in 2024.”

In response to the push from conservative organizations to get out the vote in local races, Specht said Education Minnesota and local teachers unions are also working to get more people to the polls.

“We definitely want our members and their families to know who the candidates are, do their homework and get out and vote,” she said.

DFL Party Chair Ken Martin likes that Republicans are working to raise awareness about early voting. But he’s not convinced the message will resonate.

“I think their lies and their conspiracy theories that they spread are going to make it very difficult for them to actually find, you know, a sort of common ground with a base of people that support them, and they’ve poisoned the well,” Martin said.

“And the question is, how do they undo that at this point? It’s tough to put the genie back in the bottle.”

DeJournett, with American Majority, said she knows she has a difficult task ahead in convincing conservative voters to cast their ballots before Election Day.

“Turning a tanker ship, you just can’t do it overnight. Right?” she said. “But when people feel dejected, the first thing they do is decide their voice no longer matters. And I would say … it always matters, whether you win or whether you lose.”

Early voting has already begun for school board and local races around the state. Election Day is Nov. 7.