Election protection

When the Minnesota Legislature convenes this Tuesday, election protection should be at the top of the to-do list for lawmakers. There is no question that the White House is looking for ways to disrupt the upcoming mid-term election, both here and around the country. There are multiple ways they can achieve that goal, but only if the lawmakers here in Minnesota let it happen.
While Minnesota already has laws intended to protect sensitive voter data from release for most purposes, the language in those statutes should be strengthened. For years, we relied on the integrity of top elections officials to ensure that our elections and the data surrounding them would be protected no matter which party controlled the Secretary of State’s office.
But since 2020, Donald Trump’s false claims about the integrity of U.S. elections have created a highly partisan divide that threatens to undermine public confidence.
Here in Minnesota, lawmakers need to ensure that statutory language around the protection of voter data from misuse or manipulation is as strong as it can be. The current demands by the U.S. Justice Department for access to Minnesota’s voter rolls, and their insistence on the right to purge those rolls, appear to be at odds with existing state and even federal law. But lawmakers should ensure that there is no wiggle room for a future Secretary of State to use as justification for handing over the state’s voter records to a Justice Department looking to meddle in the state’s election administration.
The U.S. Constitution is clear that elections are under the purview of the states, which is undoubtedly why the vast majority of states have refused similar demands to hand over their voter data. The federal government can and has assisted states financially in upgrading their technologies and processes, or expanding voter access, through passage of measures such as the 2002 Help America Vote Act, or the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. These, of course, were measures passed prior to 2020, in an era when there was bipartisan support for fair elections.
Today, that bipartisan support has vanished. That was apparent yet again earlier this month when all four of Minnesota’s GOP members of Congress introduced a measure in the U.S. House that would strip federal funding under HAVA to Minnesota unless Secretary of State Steve Simon allows the release of the state’s voter information to the Justice Department. That’s despite the fact that the Justice Department has refused to even explain why it is seeking the state’s voter information and how it plans to use the data or protect it from release to outside parties.
These are very legitimate concerns in the wake of last year, when DOGE representatives were allowed to access and upload data on millions of Americans, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, bank account data, and other sensitive identifying records to third-party servers. DOGE also allegedly shared voter data with outside political advocacy groups. In no way can the current administration claim any credibility or good faith when it comes to the handling of sensitive data. Minnesotans have every reason to believe that the administration’s demands for the state’s voter records are intended for purely partisan advantage. Secretary of State Simon’s firm resistance to the administration’s demands is laudable and should be continued.
Yet voter data is not the only concern. The integrity of polling places should be another top priority for lawmakers. As Minnesotans have experienced for the past two months, particularly in the Twin Cities, the presence of large numbers of masked federal gunmen in communities can leave tens of thousands of residents afraid to go outside.
Some of the president’s closest advisors have openly advocated for surrounding polling places with federal agents, ostensibly to keep non-citizens from voting. That has never been an issue in Minnesota or anywhere else in the U.S., as countless investigations all around the country have demonstrated. The real purpose of surrounding polling places is to limit voting by Americans of color, who have been overwhelmingly targeted by ICE and Border Patrol agents in the Twin Cities for months now. There is nothing like the presence of anonymous, armed individuals surrounding a polling place to make lawful voters, who legitimately fear being hassled, beaten, or arrested, think twice about the value of their vote.
Minnesota needs tough laws that give state and local law enforcement officers the tools to intervene if the administration attempts to interfere with the voting process.
We recognize that passing tough laws this session may be challenging given the closely divided Legislature. But there must lawmakers from both sides who are willing to stand up for the state’s constitutionally granted authority to manage its elections without interference from an administration that would, if it could, prefer to end elections altogether.