Briefs Filed in Case Challenging Known Illegal Voting in Minnesota

Reply briefs were filed today in a case pending before the Minnesota Supreme Court challenging continuing violations by election officials that allow ineligible voters, such as felons, to vote illegally in Minnesota.  The case was filed by the Minnesota Voters Alliance:

We then prove that election officials have been notified, as required by specific statutes, of the ineligibility of every felon and non-citizen in the state. . . . We define for the Court the two particular ways in which election officials permit known ineligible persons to vote on election-day. First, felons and other known ineligible persons such as "non-citizens" are allowed to register and then cast ballots because election officials do not check any lists of ineligible persons. Second, election officials permit every felon marked “Challenged: Felony” on the poll roster to cast a ballot if the felon “swears” they are eligible. 

How much sense does it make for the state to ask the person whose right to vote has been removed by the Court if they want to vote and then ignore what the Court said, but that is what election officials do in Minnesota. 

Not only are ineligible persons voting in Minnesota, but it has a significant effect on the outcome of elections: 

Next, we prove that the amount of ineligible voting being allowed by election officials is significant in Minnesota and that it probably has, and certainly can, determine the outcome of close elections. 

As a result of incredibly painstaking and intrepid work by a team of MVA volunteers, we have been able to present the Court with an extensive list of 1,670 instances of ineligible voting by 1,366 named individuals during the 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014 general elections. . . .

In presidential election years, more than 500,000 persons register on election day in Minnesota.  Our previous research has shown that after the 2008 election, there were more than 17,000 of those persons who, when verified after the election, had their voter statuses changed to “challenged” because they did not pass the state’s eligibility checks. 

We will post updates on this case as it moves forward.  We trust that the Minnesota Supreme Court will take this threat to the integrity of its elections seriously and order the Secretary of State to follow the law and not allow ineligible persons to vote.