09/09/2026
Minnesota will have a constitutional amendment on the ballot this November, and there are two important things to know: the topic itself, and how the vote is calculated.
There's a whole history lesson to be had here, but the main point is that Minnesota owns land that generates revenue, and this revenue is deposited into a fund and invested as managed by the state. This fund is restricted to supporting schools in Minnesota and is called the Permanent School Fund. Currently, about 2.5% of the investment is pulled to fund schools. This keeps the investment growing and stable. However, the fund has grown substantially over the last 16 years. In 2010 the fund was $675 million. Today it's $2.3 billion. A task force analyzed the potential to update the rules governing the fund and proposed upping the amount pulled from 2.5% to 4.5%. This is the question on the ballot. Do we up it by an additional 2%? The fund will remain stable and schools would receive more money, all without raising taxes.
Putting the question on the ballot was a bipartisan effort and passed the MN House unanimously.
The tricky part is how the vote is calculated.
In Minnesota, constitutional amendments must pass with a majority of total ballots cast, regardless of if the constitutional amendment question was answered. And so the important takeaway is:
If you skip the question, you're voting against it
In today's politics, most people are looking to either vote for Democrats or Republicans, and so questions like constitutional amendments, city questions, and school levy referendums fly under the radar. These questions also have a lot to unpack and very little room to explain on the actual ballot. It's very easy for people to just leave the question blank because they don't really know what the vote means.
These blanks will all be counted as "NO" votes. The vote requires the majority of people who cast a ballot in November to actively vote in favor of the amendment in order for it to pass.
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**Please educate yourself and vote!!!
