Minnesota has had a presidential primary law at least three times before.

Laws 1913, ch. 449, established a presidential primary to be held on the second Tuesday in March. It was used for the presidential election in 1916 (Woodrow Wilson ran unopposed) and was repealed by Laws 1917, ch. 133.

Laws 1949, ch. 433, established a presidential primary to be held on the second Tuesday in March. Laws 1951, ch. 156, § 1, changed it to the third Tuesday in March. It was used in 1952 (Stassen defeated Eisenhower and Taft and Humphrey defeated Kefauver) and in 1956 (Kefauver defeated Stevenson). It was repealed by Laws 1957, ch. 404, § 9.

Laws 1989, ch. 291, established a presidential primary to be held on the fourth Tuesday in February. Laws 1990, ch. 603, § 4, changed the date to the first Tuesday in April. In the 1992 primary, Bill Clinton defeated Jerry Brown and Paul Tsongas, and George H.W. Bush had little opposition, but both the Democratic and Republican parties refused to be bound by the results of the presidential primary in selecting delegates to their national conventions. Laws 1995, ch. 224, § 73, suspended the presidential primary until 2000. Laws 1999, ch. 250, art. 1, § 115, repealed it.

Section 1 requires the party caucuses to be held on the date of the presidential primary in presidential election years; in other years, the caucus date would remain the first Tuesday in March.

Section 2 eliminates the mandate that the caucuses include a presidential preference ballot.

Section 3 provides that the prohibition on public meetings on the evening of precinct caucuses does not apply when the caucus is held on a day other than the day prescribed by law.

Section 4 limits the mandate that public facilities be made available for precinct caucuses to those that are held on the day prescribed by law.

Section 5 requires the presidential primary to be held on a date set by the Secretary of State in consultation with the major political parties with the goal of creating a Midwest regional primary. The date must be no earlier than the date of the first presidential primary or caucus held in more than one state in the Midwest, defined as the states lying entirely west of Pennsylvania, north of Arkansas, and east of Wyoming, and no later than five weeks after that date. The secretary of state must announce the date of the presidential primary no later than: (1) one day after the date has been finally established for the first presidential primary or caucus in the Midwest; and (2) eleven weeks before the date set for the presidential primary.

Section 6 places on the primary ballot any candidate who files an affidavit of candidacy and pays a filing fee of $500. The ballot would also permit a voter to indicate a preference for "uncommitted" delegates to the party's national convention. Filings would open ten weeks before the primary. Names of candidates would be certified to the county auditors seven weeks before the primary. The 1992 procedure also permitted a candidate to get on the ballot by having supporters file a nominating petition and permitted a candidate to avoid the filing fee by submitting a petition in lieu of a filing fee.

Section 7 requires the presidential primary to be conducted in the same manner as the state primary. This would differ from the 1992 procedure, which had a separate ballot for each party and the voter was required to indicate a party preference (which became a matter of public record) in order to choose among the candidates of that party.

Section 8 requires the Secretary of State to give notice of the date of the presidential primary within one day after setting it, to publish and post notice of the primary two weeks in advance, and supply sample ballots to the county auditors six weeks in advance of the primary.

Section 9 requires delegates to the national convention of each major party to be chosen through the caucus and convention procedures in chapter 202A. Except for candidates who have notified the political party that they are no longer a candidate, a political party whose apportionment of delegates did not provide to each candidate at least as great a proportion of delegates to the national convention as the proportion of votes the candidate received in the presidential primary would cease to be eligible for the ten percent political party checkoff in Minn. Stat. § 10A.31, subd. 5, para. (b), cl. (6), and cease to be eligible to issue political contribution refund receipt forms under § 290.06, subd. 23, during the remainder of that year. The 1992 procedure had required the delegates to be apportioned among the candidates in proportion to the votes they received in the primary, but the parties had refused to abide by this requirement.

Section 10 requires the Secretary of State to reimburse the counties and municipalities for expenses they incur in running the presidential primary. Preparation of polling places is limited to $25 each; preparation of electronic voting systems is limited to $50 per precinct; personnel costs are limited to a total of $480,000 statewide. These figures were included in Laws 1992, ch. 511, art. 1, § 4, coded as Minn. Stat. § 207A.10, which reimbursed local governments for the costs of the 1992 presidential primary. $2.483 million was appropriated to be paid to local governments for that purpose. If the state appropriation to pay the reimbursements is inadequate to fully fund them, amounts reimbursed must be pro rated. The fiscal note dated March 17, 2007, shows the cost of the presidential primary to be as follows:

State costs (as limited by section 12) $ 785,400

Local costs (the balance) 2,776,050

Total $3,561,450

Section 11 requires each voter to sign the polling place roster, which would include the statement that:

I am in agreement with the principles of the party for whose candidate I intend to vote, and I either voted or affiliated with the party at the last state general election or intend to vote or affiliate with the party at the next state general election.

This is the same test as set forth in Minn. Stat. § 202A.16, subd. 2, for a person to vote at a precinct caucus. Unlike 1992, when a voter had to choose the ballot of the party for whose candidate he or she would vote, and a public record was kept of the voter's party choice, under this bill there would be no public record of the party chosen by the voter.

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