First appeared on FOX – Minnesota Republican House members have joined the Republican National Committee (RNC) in demanding that the administration of Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, provide updates on its voter roll cleanup efforts following discoveries that the state's automatic voter registration process improperly registered non-citizens and ineligible individuals.
Reps. Tom Emmer, Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach and Pete Stauber signed a follow-up letter sent this week by Republican National Committee election integrity counsel Kevin J. Klein and Minnesota Republican Party Chairman David Hahn. The letter, addressed to Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and Minnesota Department of Public Safety Director Bob Jacobson, acknowledged more than a month of communication between the two offices.
The Republican Party said it “provided Simon and Jacobson's offices with the information necessary to remove known foreign nationals from Minnesota's voter rolls more than a month ago,” and that “despite continued efforts to receive updates on the steps their offices were taking, it took more than three weeks to receive the information, and only the same day it was made public.”
“Commissioner Jacobson's September 12th letter acknowledges that approximately 1,000 people may have been fraudulently registered to vote through the Automatic Voter Registration (“AVR”) process,” Klein and Hahn wrote. “This has prompted us and others to explore all necessary steps to obtain transparency from your Administration. To this end, we are joined by Reps. Tom Emmer, Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach and Pete Stauber in calling on your Administration to further explain this disastrous failure.”
RNC criticizes Walz administration for not answering how foreigners ended up on Minnesota voter rolls: “It's not a hypothetical”
The letter asks the Walz administration to reveal “the exact number of people who were disregistered,” what “the various categories of information were missing from their individual records,” and “how many people were disregistered for each category of information that was missing.” It also asks Simon and Jacobson how many of those who were disregistered voted in past elections, how many of those who were disregistered received ballots in past elections, and whether those people “will be able to register and vote in the November election.”
Democratic vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks at the 2024 Labor Day Festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on September 2, 2024. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
“Would the removal of invalid individual votes have changed the outcome of past elections?” the letter asks. It also asks both Walz administration officials, “When do you plan to complete the verification of each individual's voter registration information?”
“It is essential that Minnesota voters have confidence in our state's election system, including knowing that voter rolls are comprised only of legally registered voters,” Klein and Hahn wrote.
Fox News Digital reached out to both Simon's and Jacobson's offices about the letter but did not immediately receive a response.
The RNC and Minnesota Republican Party first wrote to the Walz administration in August, noting that foreign nationals who legally reside in the state and fear their status would be at risk reported receiving ballots for the primary election without registering to vote. In their previous letters, Klein and Han noted that Walz signed a bill in March 2023 that would allow foreign nationals to receive driver's licenses, also known as driver's permits. “Driver's licenses for everyone.” Less than two months after signing this bill into law, Governor Walz signed the Democracy for the People Act, authorizing automatic voter registration through the Department of Public Safety’s Driver and Vehicle Services (DVS).
Minnesota Republican Party calls for investigation after claims of foreign nationals receiving primary ballots without registering to vote
People gather in Minnesota to vote during early voting for presidential and local elections on September 20, 2024. (Christopher Mark June/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Republicans specifically argue that Jacobson only explained how the DVS division works to verify each applicant is a U.S. citizen, but did not explain how foreign nationals “went through the process and ultimately ended up on Minnesota's voter rolls.” In early September, Klein and Han wrote Jacobson: “This is not a hypothetical. Lawful resident foreign nationals are registered to vote through your department, and Minnesota voters deserve transparency from your department to understand how this failure occurred and how it is being addressed.”
“DVS has flagged a small number of application files for which additional verification of voter registration information, including address, name and citizenship, is required,” Simon's office acknowledged in a Sept. 12 news release. The announcement focused on the 65,339 Minnesotans who registered to vote and 25,572 16- and 17-year-olds who pre-registered, but also described “internal process changes.”
The Minnesota Secretary of State's office said it is working with its DVS division to “ensure that the process proceeds as expected and that only eligible Minnesotans are registered to vote.”
A voter casts his or her ballot at the Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services Building in Minneapolis on Sept. 20, 2024. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
“This partnership involves DVS conducting two levels of manual review of all applicant files sent to the Secretary of State's Office for voter registration or pre-registration. During this review, DVS flagged a small number of applicant files as needing additional verification of voter registration information, such as address, name and citizenship,” the statement said.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the Secretary of State's Office has invalidated the voter registrations of individuals whose registrations were flagged by DVS,” the announcement continues. “These individuals may still be eligible to vote, but due to human error, their documentation was miscategorized or not properly stored in the DVS database. Affected individuals are notified that, if eligible, they should register to vote online, at their local elections office, or in person at their polling place on Election Day.”
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Simon's office said that to “add additional quality assurance to the process to catch and correct human error,” DVS now “uses two separate staff areas to double-check all DVS documents before applicants are sent to register to vote.” The office also said that “DVS has increased training for workers who sort documents and is suspending automatic voter registration under certain circumstances.”
