Fraud Isn’t Just Financial: It’s Hitting Minnesota’s Ballot Box Too
Minnesotans are being told to just "trust the system." We’re reassured that our elections are safe and our safeguards are strong. But recent testimony at the State Capitol paints a different picture. This one hits closer to home and affects our democracy.
This month, lawmakers held hearings over reports that hundreds of fake voter registration applications were submitted across 13 counties. This was part of a scheme run by individuals paid by a nonprofit that gets almost all its funding from state grants. In other words, public money supported voter registration fraud.
Secretary of State Steve Simon claims the system "worked" because the fraud was caught before anyone voted. That’s not a success; it’s luck. When fraud is caught afterward, it has still entered the system. If it happened once, it can happen again.
The issue goes deeper than a single incident. State dollars go to nonprofits with little oversight. When those organizations are caught submitting fake voter registrations, the public deserves answers, not press releases from DFL leaders, but a true investigation (as being conducted by Republicans in St. Paul right now). At the same time, questions about Minnesota’s new driver’s license law, which gives IDs to undocumented immigrants, were mostly ignored. Officials acknowledged that these IDs could, in theory, be used to register and vote in our elections. That’s not security; it’s a loophole.
Democrats talk about integrity but hesitate to act. They call for "trust" while blocking measures that would actually build it. Republicans, on the other hand, have proposed common-sense reforms: proving citizenship to register, requiring photo ID to vote, banning state-funded registration bounties, and enforcing real penalties for fraud. These aren’t extreme ideas; many states already have them.
Minnesotans have seen this before. The Feeding Our Future scandal revealed how easily public money can be misused. Now, it’s happening in the system that counts our votes. Fraud doesn’t just take tax dollars; it erodes trust. Once that trust is lost, it’s hard to restore.
Democrats at the Capitol have a choice: fix the loopholes and restore integrity, or keep ignoring the problem.
