HF 1011 will be heard in the House State and Local Government Operations Reform, Technology and Elections Committee on Tuesday, March 17^th at 8:30 AM. This bill has the to potential to better enable voter fraud by obscuring election documents.

 

The ability of the public to inspect election records is one of the few safeguards against errors and abuse corrupting our election system. HF 1011 intends to shut down a portion of that protection by making it impossible for anyone to inspect voter registrations. The all-encompassing language reads simply, “No voter registration application may be inspected.” Currently, these materials are held as confidential until they have been entered into the statewide voter registration system, after which time, any interested party is entitled to examine them. Should this bill be enacted, no one would ever be permitted to see these election-related documents. Documents such as these are among the tens of thousands of documents that Minnesota Majority has requested, and examined during our investigation into election integrity issues.

 

The bill also prohibits taking pictures or video inside a polling place. This appears to be a reaction to a movement underway during the 2008 election in which participants were encouraged to take a picture of their own ballot. Concerns about incorrect ballots being distributed, faulty voting machines and other election irregularities, combined with a distrust of paperless electronic voting machines used in some states led to this movement for individuals to document their Election Day experiences. Citizen-organized evidence gathering of this kind seems to greatly disturb election officials. Reports from different precincts in Minnesota demonstrated inconsistent handling of voters bringing cameras into the polls. Some voters were simply told not to photograph anyone else’s ballot, while others were told they could not bring a camera into the polling place at all. State law is currently silent on the use of cameras in the polling place. One good reason offered for the addition of this language is to prevent "vote selling." If a person can provide evidence of how they voted, the possibility of bribery and coercion could be opened up.

 

In addition to the measures already mentioned that will serve to make Minnesota’s elections less transparent, this bill hands extraordinary power to the chairpersons of the major political parties under crisis circumstances. The “Continuity of Congress” portion of the bill deals with what is apparently envisioned as a possible catastrophe that would result in 100 or more vacancies in the US House of Representatives. It provides for speedy special elections to fill vacancies in such a situation, within 49 days of the announcement of the vacancies. It gives 10 days following the announcement for the chairpersons of major political parties to announce their party’s nominee to the Secretary of State. This process bypasses primary elections, and doesn’t seem to require any endorsing conventions.

 

The authors of HF 1011 are Representatives Hilty and Kalin, both Democrats who serve on the House Government Operations committee. Both voted against the voter photo ID bill recently heard in the Government Ops committee. 

House File 1011 has a companion bill in the Senate authored by Senators Sieben and Marty. It’s been referred to the Senate’s Government Operations committee.

Update: HF 1011 has been amended in the Government Operations Committee and passed out to the House floor by an acclaimation vote. The amendments that were adopted eliminated the most objectionable aspects of the bill. The language that would have concealed election records from the public has been stripped out.

Additional Resources: Listen to the Dan Conry Show on Tuesday, March 17th for a discussion of HF1011.