Minnesota Senate Democrats on Wednesday tossed aside a longstanding custom of bipartisan elections changes by passing two bills loaded with controversial, partisan, and divisive overhauls of Minnesota’s elections process. The final bill passed on party line vote 34-33. 

“Minnesota has a long tradition of only making elections changes with bipartisan support,” said Senator Mark Koran (R-North Branch), the lead Republican on the Elections Committee. “This custom has served us well, and it is one reason why Minnesota’s election system is so well respected around the county. It is disappointing to see Democrats so casually throw that revered custom out the window in favor of a controversial, hyper-partisan agenda aimed at serving their special interest friends. This bill makes our elections weaker, riskier, less transparent, and less trustworthy.” 

ELECTIONS POLICY BILL  

The most controversial item in the elections policy bill is the National Popular Vote Compact, which would add Minnesota to the list of states that agree to bind their presidential electors to the winner of the national popular vote. Doing so would effectively eliminate the Electoral College, which was created in part to protect the influence of small states. Some scholars argue the National Popular Vote Compact itself is unconstitutional, as Congress must consent to interstate compacts. Republicans offered an amendment to remove the National Popular Vote Compact from the bill to protect Minnesota’s independence and prevent our electors from being bound by the decisions of other states, but Democrats rejected it. 

The policy bill also weakens residency requirements to give candidates the ability to simply claim that they “maintain residence” in a chosen location. Many concerns were raised last after a traffic stop with DFL Representative John Thompson, who used a Wisconsin driver’s license, revealed there is little oversight in place to verify a legislative candidate’s residency claims. This provision was also in the elections budget bill. Republicans offered an amendment to remove the “maintains residency” language from the bill so candidates and officials would have to verify their residency, but it was rejected. 

Additional notable items in the elections policy bill:  

• A series of redundant, unneeded, and confusing electioneering rules to regulate things already covered by federal law 
  • These changes are more government regulation of free speech, aimed to specifically target speech that Democrats don’t support.   
• Allows candidates to use non-campaign funds to pay to replace lost or stolen property, despite the fact that non-campaign funds cannot be used for campaign-related expenses 
  • Republicans expressed concern that campaigns could claim items were lost or stolen, and without proper verification, this provision could be exploited to bypass campaign finance regulations and subsidy agreements to spend more than allowed under state law 

 
HF 3 — ‘DEMOCRACY FOR THE PEOPLE’ ACT  

The so-called “Democracy for the People” Act weakens elections transparency in several ways.  

It allows for pre-registration of 16-year-olds and deems those voters inactive in our State Voter Registration System (SVRS). Since data of minors will be mixed into SVRS, all ineligible voters will be classified as non-public data, making it difficult for the public to independently confirm that ineligible voters are not voting. 

The bill authorizes permanent absentee voters, allowing for a voter to request an absentee ballot automatically for every subsequent election, with no process to validate that the voter remains at the same address, has not passed away, or was deemed ineligible to vote. A successful Republican amendment in committee classified permanent absentee voters as public data, but if a permanent absentee ballot recipient moves, passes away, or loses their right to vote, they will still automatically be sent a ballot. 

It includes an onerous requirement for counties to provide a licensed or certified translator at all polling places. According to the American Translators Association, there are only about 10,000 of these trainers in the entire world, and counties expressed concern about being able to comply with this requirement.

Finally, the bill contradicts a 2018 United States Supreme Court ruling that struck down very broad free speech restrictions at the polling place. This bill puts restrictions back in place limiting not just specific candidate’s name, likeness, or logo, but also generic political names, logos, or slogans. This provision is also in the elections budget bill. 

Republican amendments to improve the bill would: 

• Remove pre-registration of 16-year-olds to protect election transparency and integrity by keeping ineligible voter data public 
• Remove the provision allowing permanent absentee ballots with no validation, to guard against the security of future elections 
• Change the automatic voter registration requirement to “opt-in” instead of “opt-out” 
• Prohibit loopholes for wealthy organizations to influence our elections and policy  

These amendments were rejected by Senate Democrats.