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The political season in Minnesota begins at 7:00 PM this evening with the precinct caucuses.

The Minnesota Secretary of State maintains a Polling Place Finder website containing all the information you need to locate the precinct caucus for your party affiliation. Only political parties that are considered to be “major parties” are eligible to hold caucuses. A “major party” is defined as any political party having a candidate for governor, president, or senator in the last general election who received at least 5% of the popular vote.

Minnesota is an open caucus state, which means that you can attend and vote in the caucus for any political party in your home precinct if you are in agreement with the principles of the party, voted with the party in the last state general election, or intend to vote with the party at the next state general election. The laws governing caucuses are contained in Chapter 202A of the Minnesota statutes.

In Minnesota, anyone can challenge anyone else’s right to participate in a caucus and the entire caucus—except the person being challenged—votes to decide whether or not the challenged person can participate.

Want to play? Good; it’s an important part of citizenship. Once you’ve used the Polling Place Finder to determine your precinct (or your congressional district in the case of the two smaller parties), use the following political party sites to locate where your precinct caucus is being convened.

• Democratic-Farmer-Labor
• Green
• Independence (no caucus information available)
• Republican