House and Senate Republican leaders finally have a response from Department of Public Safety to an inquiry about ineligible voters registered through the new Automatic Voter Registration law. A letter from DPS suggests about 1,000 voter registrations were inactivated after the review requested by Republicans.

House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth, Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, and House and Senate Elections Committee ranking minority members Representative Paul Torkelson and Senator Mark Koran released the following statement in response:

“The letter from DPS only raises more questions. One percent of more than 100,000 registrants is 1,000 people. What is the actual number of registrations that were inactivated? Based on a public release from the Secretary of State and the response from DVS, we still don’t know the answer to a simple question: Did any of these registrants vote in the August primary?

“The election is 52 days away, and early voting begins on September 20. Minnesotans want to trust our elections are secure and fair. They deserve to know if our election officials can even answer these questions when asked.”