Good morning and welcome to Monday and the start of a new month. Tomorrow is Election Day, and that's where we'll start.

Following more than a year of instability, including George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police and ensuing civil unrest, Minneapolis mayoral candidates are making their final pitches to city residents before Tuesday’s election. MPR’s Jon Collins reports : At issue this election is not only who will lead Minneapolis, but also whether voters in the city that sparked a worldwide movement calling for police accountability will choose to drastically restructure public safety. Voters will decide whether to approve a ballot initiative to replace the city’s police department with a new department of public safety or to keep the current structure in place. Early voting has been underway for weeks, leading up to Election Day on Tuesday. There are 17 mayoral candidates on the Minneapolis ballot, from Nate “Honey Badger” Atkins of the Libertarian Party to Doug Nelson of the Socialist Workers Party. But three of the most active candidates in the DFL-dominated city are incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey, former state representative Kate Knuth and community organizer Sheila Nezhad. 

And if you’re still thinking about who should get your vote, there’s more information about the candidates for mayor here . 

NPR has a new poll about Americans’ trust in the election system: A majority of Americans trust that elections are fair, are confident in their state and local governments' ability to administer elections, and will trust the results in 2022 and in 2024 regardless of whether their preferred candidate wins, a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds. The survey also found that most Americans feel that former President Donald Trump has continued to say the 2020 election was rigged mostly because he didn't like the outcome. But those results are largely because of Democrats and independents. Many Republicans appear to have bought into Trump's lies about nonexistent widespread fraud in an election he lost. The story is not simply a divide between the parties but also among those who tend to vote for Republicans. There was a big education gap — between those with college degrees and those without — that emerged in the survey when it came to Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. The poll also finds President Joe Biden’s approval at 44 percent. 

Minnesota generally does a good job making polling places accessible for people with disabilities, but there are still some problems.Sarah Gelbard did the story for MPR News : Minnesota Council on Disability ADA Director David Fenley said eligible voters with cognitive disabilities might be discouraged from voting. Voters who have trouble standing, or others who use wheelchairs and walkers to get around, might have a hard time navigating long lines that wind through uneven terrain, across steep curbs. And “disability parking is a big one,” Fenley said. “There were a couple instances that I heard about in the last election where the disability parking was full of cars that did not have disability parking placards, and the election judge did not have the cars removed from there,” he said. “So potentially anybody who's driving to the polls and needed that parking, couldn't get it at that particular polling place.”

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said Saturday that she has tested positive for a breakthrough case of COVID-19. In a series of posts on Twitter, Flanagan said she tested positive Friday after caring for her 8-year-old daughter, who tested positive for COVID last week. "I've experienced a lot of extreme feelings over the course of this pandemic, but nothing has compared to how I felt when our baby said she didn't feel well," Flanagan wrote. Flanagan said Saturday that she's under the weather but doing OK, and her daughter is feeling better.

The new Minnesota Pollution Control Agency commissioner is an engineer who has a long history in the field, including at the department that oversees air, water and waste management.Brian Bakst reported that Gov. Tim Walz selected assistant commissioner Katrina Kessler for the top job that came open after the summer resignation of the prior leader Laura Bishop. Kessler has led the agency’s water policy and agriculture division as assistant commissioner since 2019. “I don't expect that this represents a sea change. Nor do I have a desire to change direction. I think that we have a lot of momentum that we can build from. I think there's really excellent work underway across the administration, with our cabinet partners, as well as within the agency,” Kessler said. “I'm excited to continue to work on those priorities, such as mitigating climate change, building resiliency, integrating equity into the work that we do across the state as well as readying the state for the federal infrastructure package.”