Resident alleges election violation

A Forest Lake resident is filing a complaint about election law violation after he saw materials he believes advocate pro-life political candidates in the hallway of St. Peter Catholic Church, one of the polling places in Forest Lake on Election Day.
William Bigler contacted The Forest Lake Times shortly after voting at the church, which was the polling place for Precinct 2, the afternoon of Nov. 8. While he was at the church, Bigler noticed several items posted on the church’s walls and bulletin boards that he believed to be items that could potentially influence voters as they walked in to cast their vote.broadstreet.zone(48036);
Bigler’s biggest complaint had to do with a couple of items that were posted in a hallway that residents would not need to walk down to vote, but that still was visible from the entrance. One item was a bulletin board that displayed pro-life messages, including the statement

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Split ticket in Forest Lake

After an active campaign season for Forest Lake’s open mayoral and City Council seats, Forest Lake voters made their final decision on Tuesday. In a race defined by two distinct teams of candidates dominating the discussion, the results came back with residents split, awarding current Councilman Ben Winnick the mayor’s seat over Mark Finnemann and selecting challengers Mara Bain and Sam Husnik for the council person seats over Bruce Anderson and incumbent Councilman Richard Weber.
In results reported on election night, Winnick took home 4,605 votes (47.4 percent) to Finnemann’s 4,463 (45.94 percent). In the council races, the top four vote getters were Bain with 3,803 votes (24.14 percent), Husnik with 3,433 (21.79 percent), Weber with 2,745 (17.42 percent) and Anderson with 2,415 (15.33 percent).broadstreet.zone(48036);
When the candidates registered in August, many in the community were quick to draw battle lines on issues like approval of the current council’s budget operations and

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