A Full-frontal Assault on Election Integrity, Fast-tracked to the Senate Floor
There was a full-frontal assault on election integrity taking place in the Minnesota Senate on Wednesday, but there was little resistance. It was a sneak attack. Don’t bother to look for it in the press. It wasn’t even covered by Senate media. The cameras in the room were all conspicuously pointed at the ceiling, even though a whopping 70-page election reform bill was being discussed (to put that in context, the 21st Century Voter ID bill of 2011, which was considered a comprehensive election reform omnibus bill was 60 pages and had hours of televised hearings before being passed along).
It took the Senate Elections Committee all of 30 minutes to present the whopping omnibus election “reform” bill and pass it out of committee.
Led by Senator Katie Sieben (D-54-Newport), the elections committee pulled a fast one. With a barely-announced agenda change, they suddenly pulled a bill from Wednesday’s committee meeting that would have imposed new donor and expenditure disclosure requirements on non-profit organizations (like Minnesota Majority) and replaced it with the huge omnibus election “reform” bill. We saw it coming, but almost no one else did. A number of both right and left-leaning organizations expressed concerns about the disclosure bill, which may have been a factor, but the result was no notice, no public input and no testimony on what is perhaps the most significant and damaging election bill ever to pass out of a senate committee in Minnesota. It’s going straight to the Senate Rules Committee and from there to the Senate floor for a vote.
SF 677 as introduced was a 2-page bill that aimed to curtail the activities of partisan poll challengers and put new regulatory hurdles for potential volunteer challengers in place. In its original form, it also gave the secretary of state authority to pick and choose who could be a poll challenger. Thankfully, at least that particularly egregious part was amended out in committee, but they also added about 68 pages, to incorporate every bad idea for Minnesota’s election system that’s yet been thought.
The final bill passed out of the Senate Elections Committee is a monstrous bill that pulls numerous protections against voter fraud out of the statutes and provides no reason to give voters more confidence in the fairness of our election system.
Some of the most egregious changes the bill seeks to enact are:
- Early voting (even though testimony and non-partisan research indicates it would run afoul of the Minnesota Constitution) – the bill would allow early voters to be “vouched” for, enabling a single fraudster to vote under multiple false identities for weeks on end.
- Early voters will be allowed to cast live, immediately accepted and tabulated ballots before their identity and eligibility is verified. Early voters can use vouching, so they can really amplify the notion of “vote early, vote often,” over and over again for weeks on end.
- “No-excuse” absentee voting (even though the bi-partisan Carter-Baker Commission report concluded that “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud”) – absentee voting is the primary source of organized, conspiracy-based voter fraud in every state that’s investigated it. Any expansion of absentee voting without a commensurate fraud mitigation plan will lead to more voter fraud in Minnesota.
- Reduction in the number of partisan “poll challengers,” the observers appointed by all major political parties to observe voting in polling places whose job is to challenge suspected ineligible voters – it also severely restricts the abilities and authority of poll challengers.
- Expands mail-balloting – Exclusively vote-by-mail precincts are limited to townships with voting populations under 400. This plan will potentially eliminate polling places, in-person election day voting, citizen election judges and partisan observers for hundreds of Minnesota communities by allowing townships of up to 1,000 voters to conduct elections exclusively by mail-in ballots.
- Reduces the penalties for fraudulently registering to vote
- Reduces the penalties for causing others to be intentionally registered to vote fraudulently (from a felony to a misdemeanor) – for example, a person who registers a mentally incapacitated person to vote, who is not eligible to vote would be guilty of a misdemeanor, instead of the felony charge under current law.
- Removes the absolute requirement for county attorneys to investigate and (upon finding probable cause) to prosecute voter fraud allegations – this makes voter fraud investigations and charges optional and will lead to lax enforcement, (perhaps politically motivated) selective prosecution, and no recourse will be available to citizens whose voter fraud complaints go un-investigated.
- A rare instance of integrity in the bill would have attempted to prevent an “early voter” from also casting an absentee ballot, but that section (Section 8 of SF 677) was ultimately deleted, so apparently, little to no safeguards will prevent double-voting under the same identity and no safeguards prevent multiple early votes under multiple false identities, via vouching.
- That’s not all. The bill is too large and damaging to reasonably encapsulate in one article. See for yourself, when the bill becomes public (we’ll post it, but you can review recent Minnesota Majority articles about prior stand-alone bills to get a taste of what’s in it).
The bill passed along party lines, with 5 Democrats voting for it, and 2 Republicans voting against. One Republican and one Democrat were absent for the vote.
The Senate Elections Committee passed the bill without public knowledge or testimony and referred it to the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, where it’s expected to be rubber-stamped and passed on to the full Senate for a floor vote.
Take Action:
Contact your senator now and express your feelings about SF 677.
SF 677 has already been scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Rules and Administration Committee on Monday. Please attend to show your opposition if at all able. Public testimony will likely not be accepted. Contact committee director Thomas Kukielka at (651) 296-9384 if you are interested in trying, however.
More actions to follow.
21st century? looks like the beginning of times! We are sick of the crooks protecting their fraud. Wasting endless time and money for this bill? They’re directly assaulting and insulting integrity and Minnesota. One simple requirement makes for one page one hour meeting if we the people were respected as grown adults. Everything that’s bipartisan democrats corrupt with their unknown accomplices. Bipartisan or not early voting just makes those votes against the corrupt, disappear. This doesn’t seem constitutional AT ALL. The only non profits that are the tax peoples’ business to be disclosed are the non profits the government steals our money to subsidize behind our backs, refusing transparency. These are the only “non profit” organizations effecting the spending in this corrupt state.
xcel energy sent us a bill saying how more efficient we are compared to our “efficient neighbors” and wants to know how we do it by commenting on line! That’s odd? They know already! So if mm doesn’t mind, we won’t go on their line. It’s obvious by our meter, XCEL! We use as little as possible brought up in Minnesota accountable to the expense of what we use. We can’t afford the crooked taxes, fees, alternative energy costs, special tax for people who aren’t held accountable to their use nobody motivates them to cover on their own. If people (excluding the elderly) didn’t have the resources, costs would come down for everyone. If we’re in this together, people have to take their full responsibility to their lives! We won’t apply for crooked help no matter how cold it gets. Xcel overcharges for the government collective who are all individuals getting their way paid. This state sucks and they use the good of Minnesotans to pay for it! The whole democratic party sucks! Look at that embarrassment, Keith Ellison! Minnesota is better than to be represented by mean, immature, deceit and ignorance! Surprised he didn’t start crying! How unappreciative most elected democrats are to Minnesotans and to show pride in their weakness at a high cost for that weakness because by golly, no one is expected any better of themselves when they’re so easily hurt by their own truth. It’s the 21st century democrat way, where man decides he isn’t man enough to stand accountable.
The reform that is needed must first start at the moment the candidate attempts to register using a pseudonym. The majority of Americans are unaware of the loophole that allows a person to register as a candidate using a fictional name, but thats just the beginning of the problem, as that pseudonym doesn’t even have to be registered to that person. Then to make matters even worse they can opt to have a third party VOUCH for their identity.
Im not making this up, feel free to consult your lawyer as they will confirm that a person who chooses to have a third person to vouch for who they are does not even have to show ANY form of identification whatsoever to become eligible and run for office.
So to put it simply, in a country where you need to show your ID to rent a movie at your local video store, you don’t have to show one to run the country that video store is located in.
How do you expect to hold that pseudonym accountable for their actions if you don’t even know who they are to begin with.
This has been the dirty little secret that these actors that call themselves your representatives know that you don know so they always have an escape route ready incase you decide to poke around and discover they sold you out to whatever the highest paying corporation/lobbyist was that walked through their office door.
Jessie Ventura not his real name (he admits that ) Not even registered to his person. (he admits that too) but yet he signed the officials documents while he was Gov. Do you know who he really is? No
Do you know where he lives? No (He claims Mexico.)
Do you think you could hold him accountable if you one day discovered he sold you out? No.
Sheriff Arpaio Not his real name
AR = Arizona
PA = Pennsylvania where he was the Philadelphia Police Chief, then Mayor using the pseudonym Rizzo
iO = The Chicago Improve Theater where he was one of the silent founders and almost all of his family members are alumni.
I could go on and on since I have identified about 60 elected officials that are not who they claim to be. DOUBT ME?
Go dig up the two page registration document of your local officials and see if they opted to have someone vouch for them so they could run for office. Obama? Nancy Peloci Vouched for him, so we have no idea who he is or what his birth name was.
But keep in mind everything I just told you I 100% legal and they are not bound by any statute to tell you the constituents anything.
If you choose to test what I say be ready to understand how it feel to talk to a wall because they (the people that abuse your trust and are liars) are the one them selves you must get to change the law they all enjoy.
Good luck.
Ed Chiarini
Founder of Wellaware1.com
The person and website the 1%’ers fear.