Listen to Sen. Westrom’s floor speech on protecting the integrity of Minnesota elections

On Thursday, April 18, the Minnesota Senate passed an Elections Policy Omnibus bill that adds costly burdens to local governments, reduces community representation in local elections, and fails to deliver integrity and transparency to Minnesota’s elections.

“We should be passing election laws that protect against fraud and improve the integrity of our Minnesota elections,” Senator Torrey Westrom (R-Alexandria) said. “However, the partisan election bill passed by Senate Democrats includes problematic policies that reduce integrity and transparency in our elections.”

Among the more concerning changes in the bill is a change to the voter registration process for people claiming to be homeless. If enacted, they can simply mark a place on a map where they “claim” they generally reside, even though they don’t have an address, and cast their vote for that precinct without any accountability or verification process, this is ripe for fraud. Currently, any voter who registers before election day must verify their physical address.

The legislation also makes a change that would allow school boards to fill vacancies with an appointment, instead of a local election, for as long as two years. This change prevents voters from choosing their elected school board representatives and significantly reduces public input in the electoral process.

Another concerning provision of the Elections Policy bill requires any county or municipality that administers elections to transition to a ‘.gov’ website.

Senate Republicans offered several amendments to protect the integrity of election results and increase legitimate participation. Among them was the establishment of provisional ballots for voters who register on Election Day. Without provisional ballots, voter eligibility is only determined after their ballot has already been accepted again making this ripe for fraud. This Republican amendment sought to ensure all voters have their registrations reviewed for accuracy before ballots are accepted. Currently, provisional ballots are used in 47 other states, but not in Minnesota.

During the floor debate, Sen. Westrom spoke to a Republican amendment to protect the integrity of Minnesota’s elections. This amendment would require election judges to ask a voter if they are a citizen before the voter signs the signature certificate. “By having election judges ask a question to confirm if someone is a United States citizen, it would be one more check and balance to ensure that people who are here illegally are not passing a ballot,” Sen. Westrom shared.

Other amendments offered by Senate Republicans include:

• Preventing non-governmental groups from paying for election-related expenses through so-called, “Zuckerbucks” to keep elections free of outside influence.
• Banning political spending by organizations that receive state funding to ensure tax dollars are being spent responsibly and not used in a pay-to-play scheme.
• Requiring municipal and school board elections be held in general election years to increase voter participation.

The amendments were defeated along party lines.