Minnesota state leaders are facing a new lawsuit from the Heritage Foundation, which alleges the state has not disclosed crucial details on an estimated 1,000 voters who were removed from the voter rolls.
New automatic voter registration law
In 2023, Democrats passed a law which automatically registers Minnesotans to vote when they apply for a driver’s license or update their driver’s license. That same year, Democrats also passed a law which allows illegal immigrants to receive driver’s licenses.
Amid questions from Republicans locally and nationally, Department of Public Safety (DPS) Commissioner Bob Jacobson said in September that his agency’s Driver and Vehicle Services division completed a manual review of 103,986 individual records.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the Office of the Secretary of State inactivated about 1 percent of those records pending confirmation of various pieces of voter registration information, including address, name and citizenship,” Jacobson wrote.
In response, the Heritage Foundation submitted formal records requests in September for details on the inactivated voters, asking for information on the actual number of inactivated voters, the reasons for inactivation, and whether these individuals had voted in previous elections, were sent mail-in ballots or had been re-registered since the review.
The Heritage Foundation’s lawsuit, filed Oct. 25 against DPS and Secretary of State Steve Simon’s office, claims that Minnesota officials have not provided this information, thus failing to comply with public transparency laws.
Heritage Foundation calls out Minnesota’s ‘silence’
“The [Heritage Foundation’s] Oversight Project has already uncovered evidence of noncitizens admitting on camera to being registered to vote in Minnesota in the upcoming election,” said Kyle Brosnan, the project’s chief counsel.
According to Brosnan, state officials have had “credible evidence of noncitizens” appearing on Minnesota’s voter rolls for months but have remained silent on the issue.
“The silence from Minnesota election officials on this important issue speaks volumes,” said Brosnan.
“We submitted an open records request seeking transparency about Minnesota’s voter roll maintenance efforts. Of the approximately 1,000 voters we know were removed, how many are noncitizens? This is a simple question and Minnesota election officials have not answered it,” he added. “These officials have not been transparent with elected leaders from the state and have ignored our open records request.”
In a prior statement, Simon’s office said the automatic voter registration system “includes an intensive review process by state and local government officials to verify registrants’ identity and residence and confirm their eligibility to vote.”
“The Office of Secretary of State has worked with DVS to add additional quality assurance to the process to catch and correct the instances of human error,” the statement said.
Minnesota has a history of razor-thin election margins. In 2008, the U.S. Senate race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman was decided by just 312 votes, highlighting the potential impact of even a few ineligible voters in a close contest.
