Click or tap on the questions to expand...
If modem-equipped electronic voting machines used, law broken because modems are not certified... state law requires only certified equipment to be used in elections.
If electronic voting machines NOT used, state law also broken, as 2023 law mandates machines be used in precincts that previously used them.
I would not fault a county or city or town for hand counting, even though 2024 law said ballots must be immediately sealed after polls closed, seemingly to prevent hand counting.
Why has the Office of the Secretary of State, which is responsible for certification, and also helps to influence the legislature and ensure the laws are followed, allowed counties, cities, and towns to be presented with such a conundrum?
Is it possible to run an election in Minnesota without breaking the law?
Go to nearby cities/towns to inform them they can hand count MORE of their ballots in the post-election review (PER) in November 2024 by passing a specific resolution.
Can you hear the naysayers?
"But Minnesota Statutes say we only need to do..."
Why settle for minimum standards?
This is a simple process that has ALREADY been accomplished in 2 cities in Anoka County - all the steps are laid out and resources available on each.
Just keep reading...
Now, to be clear, although we had one person who went to 21 cities, we're not asking that from you.
Start with one city or town nearby. Maybe the first isn't interested and you do one more after that.
All that's really needed is a can-do attitude.
You're going to learn as you go and help out your fellow Minnesotans who may never know you helped them, which feels good and will keep you humming along.
You will guide the city/town through 3 stages: AWARENESS, CONSIDERATION, and DECISION.
Your goal is to make a great impression and find a councilmember or town supervisor to champion this cause and invite you to make a longer presentation.
Every county, city, or town has regular open meetings.
Choose a county (only if living in the 20 lowest population counties), city, or town - look up when the next meeting is and mark it on your calendar.
Show up early so that you can get a spot on the open forum or public comment list.
You will have prepared to give a speech similar to the following.
Start of speech.
Allow me to go into detail on these three because you will see a problem as well as a very simple solution.
Expand on #1... We double check a lot of things in government - why shouldn't we double check our votes? Whether we trust election machines or not, it doesn't hurt to have a more thorough check. By Minnesota Statute, the post-election review (PER) is happening in every county... why shouldn't this city/town have more of its precincts included? Otherwise we may not get to check our votes at all...
Expand on #2... Typically, post-election reviews (risk-limiting audit) will audit a small percentage of precincts within a county, picked at random during the county canvassing meeting. However, cities (and towns) can opt to increase the number precincts and indicate that all contested races be included, to which the county canvassing board may consent.
The cost is small for the benefit of auditing the election in your city or town, which otherwise does not automatically get done at all. (Only some cities or towns will get a precinct chosen at random by the county canvassing board.)
The 93rd Minnesota Legislature (2023) has mandated electronic tabulators and reduced transparency by making ballot images non-public data. But even those that trust the entire process and electronic systems can do a bit of diligence to check to show citizens they care about integrity of the results (PERs do not check validity of ballots nor electronic systems, only that reported results match the ballots available at the risk-limiting audit.)
Expand on #3... I can come back with a small team to give as thorough a presentation as you'd like, from 15-30 minutes, in a workshop or in your main meeting.
Typically, any questions are answered there.
One common question is cost. We have data to support that this costs about $1,000 per precinct added to the post-election review (PER). Does $1,000 for added trust sound like a good deal?
After I come back and give that longer presentation, the councilmembers use a template to draft the resolution and either put it in the consent agenda or bring it to the main meeting so it can be up for discussion.
We'll be here to support you every step of the way to ensure 100% legality and compliance with Minnesota Statutes as well as reducing the workload to nearly zero as this has already been done in other cities that have passed this kind of resolution.
End of speech.
Make yourself available after to meet any councilmembers or town board supervisors who are interested to learn more - THIS person is the champion/leader.
They will be your ticket to a longer presentation invite.
You will follow up with them the next day by email, phone, and text to help them get what they need to sell internally to get you on the agenda to present or to set a workshop time for you to present.
What if none of them seemed interested?
Follow up with those you think might have been - if none are, choose the next city or town and repeat. Even getting No's is valuable because it helps fill in the Minnesota map.
Your goal is to help the city council or town board realize they can pass a resolution to increase trust in elections by expanding the number of precincts to be hand-counted in the post-election review (PER), which is already statutorily required for the county.
Typically, this speech will repeat the main points from the 3-minute speech you already gave during open forum or public comment, and focus on the benefit of passing a resolution, a draft of which will be provided.
Emphasize that this has already been done in other cities - it is completely legal, builds trust for all voters, and only costs about $1,000 per precinct, a drop in the bucket of some city's spending.
Here's an example speech outline with key steps.
End of speech.
Again, stay after the presentation formally ends to chit-chat with the champion, connect with others on the council/board, and also meet anyone in the audience who was persuaded and would like to join you in helping with this city/town.
There is a lot of demand for this right now. People will look to you for answers.
Be confident that the holy spirit will guide you in what to say. If you don't know the answer to something - it's just fine to say I don't know, but I will get you that answer by tonight/tomorrow.
Remember, the ACEIT team (Anoka County Election Integrity Team) has already helped 2 cities to pass resolutions. Oak Grove voted 5-0 for 4/4 precincts. Ramsey voted 7-0 for 6/9 precincts.
The cities/towns you speak to may have the same questions Oak Grove and Ramsey had.
When you get this far, it is probably quite exciting.
Even if the champion/leader - the council member or town supervisor - who is selling internally and moving things along is on board, they will have to get enough of their fellow council members or supervisors on board before the resolution is likely to be brought to a vote.
Unless your champion/leader wants more frequent check-ins, time block to reach out to them weekly, by phone. Emails back and forth can be more frequent to answer any questions they have. Likely these will be filtered questions from the other councilmembers or town supervisors as well as potential hurdles put in their path by city, town, or even county staff.
It's worth noting that this solution is completely, 100% legal. The 94th Minnesota Legislature (2024) is already out of session, so the current election codes cannot change.
Any suggestion that what is being presented is out of compliance with the law or somehow impossible to do within process is simply incorrect.
This is actually a tiny ask when considering that the current audit process does very little to defend against the over 100 known ways to cheat in Minnesota elections.
When more cities say Yes, or No, they will get to live with the consequences of those choices.
But it is up to YOU and ultimately US, also known as We the People, to help our cities and towns (and smaller counties) become AWARE, CONSIDER, and DECIDE upon this course of action.
Maybe you're wondering if you can handle this - Yes, you can.
For inspiration, check out presentations given by ACEIT here: https://projectminnesota.com/anoka
We have tips, tools, and templates to keep you organized and I will personally help to hold you accountable every week. Many people like to know they are working as part of a team...
Welcome to the STATEWIDE Minnesota team.
If you do join us, please email Erik the first city you will go to and the date of that city council meeting or town board supervisor meeting.
This way I can find someone nearby you to support you who might even attend the meeting with you.
If a smaller county (under population 10,000), it is reasonable to start with the county commissioner meeting and then branch out to the cities and towns. If starting with the county, the resolution would differ slightly: Perhaps something like expanding the PER to include 30% of all precincts in the county.
Learnings and wins will be shared weekly through our network.
I'm smiling right now as I look ahead to receiving your success stories and questions in my inbox! - Erik
No-excuse mail-in began in 2014 leading to large increase in absentee/mail-in ballots and votes.
Minnesota's 93rd Legislature (2023) made:
As seen in MS 206.58 AUTHORIZATION FOR USE. Subd. 1 Municipalities. ''Once a municipality has adopted the use of an electronic voting system in one or more precincts, the municipality must continue to use an electronic voting system for state elections in those precincts.''.
This statute does not address the ex post facto nature of the law: When counties chose to use electronic equipment they would not have known this law was going to be passed later, removing their choice. Additionally, it is unclear whether redrawing precinct lines would refresh the option for the county.
For ballot images MS 206.845 BALLOT RECORDING AND COUNTING SECURITY. Subd. 3 Cast vote records. shows, after the ordered list of 5 items, an additional line of text: ''Data stored as images are protected nonpublic data under section 13.02. It is unclear why a sixth item with this information was not put into the numbered list, but rather listed below. Perhaps it was a late addition during drafting?
The entire subdivision on cast vote records was added in 2023 after many Minnesota county auditors, county attorneys, and even the MN Secretary of State suggested they either were turned off, did not exist, or were not accessible. Note: If cast vote records were to be somehow turned off, this action would decertify that tabulator according to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC).
For all 2023 election laws in a 536-page pdf, click here.
Additional amendments are in the works for 2024.
For instance, added to MS 204C.20 BALLOTS; NUMBER TO BE COUNTED. will be a subdivision which reads: Subd. 5. Precincts with ballot tabulators. In precincts using ballot tabulators, once the final count of ballots agrees with the number of ballots to be counted, election judges must immediately prepare the summary statement in accordance with section 204C.24 and seal the ballots in accordance with section 204C.25 for return to the county auditor. The effective date will be June 1, 2024. Click here to see HF4772.This new subdivision would seem to be aimed at preventing a parallel hand count on election day after the ballots have gone through the electronic tabulator.
Not much, but perhaps more than one may think... Consider:
*It appears that the 94th Legislature (2024) will introduce a new subdivision in MS 204C.20 BALLOTS; NUMBER TO BE COUNTED. which will hinder this idea, even though it is not strictly speaking illegal. (It would be surprising for the legislature to outlaw hand counting given that it is the default backup plan in case of electronic outages.)
The above are currently legal, but that can change. If pursuing any of the above and facing resistance, ask oneself: Why should anyone object if the goal is a secure, transparent, verifiable, and accessible election and these approaches are within the currently written election codes?
If the laws change in response to your efforts, then so be it.
Instead of 536 pages of laws, why not try the following?
Cities, towns, and counties will decide how to conduct their elections, so long as:
With such an approach, it can be seen that there is:
Instead, the will of the people, through decision-making at the city, town, and county level, determines how best to carry out their elections, so long as it is in keeping with the principles of integrity, security, transparency, verifiability, acessibility, and accuracy.