Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon focused on the important topic of “the business of democracy,” as he put it, for UMRA’s well-attended February 2023 forum. He spoke to give us a common understanding of what the current election system is, so as to address the urgent problem of election disinformation.

An important element in addressing election disinformation is to define what that term means, he said. It is not about genuine disagreements over what election policies should be. Rather, the term is aimed at deliberate distortion—for political or financial purposes or both—of what the current election system actually is. 

Simon gave an example from Pennsylvania: In 2020, knowing that absentee voting due to COVID would see a huge surge, the Pennsylvania secretary of state asked the state legislature for permission to begin processing absentee votes ahead of election day, to prepare them for counting once the polls closed. The legislature refused. There were then post-election claims of a suspicious big “dump” of ballots three days after the election to throw the election to a particular candidate. In fact, the delay was the result of the legislature’s refusal to permit early processing of lawfully cast absentee votes.

Other serious threats to election integrity that Simon noted are cynicism—especially the rejection of elections as a way to fix things—and foreign adversaries targeting cyber security.

“Our democracy is resilient,” he said, “But remember, resilient doesn’t mean indestructible.”

Minnesota’s enviable election process

So, what accounts for Minnesota’s enviable election process? Here are some of the facts Simon cited:

• Minnesota has 3,000 polling locations and had 30,000 election judges even in the middle of the COVID pandemic.
• The State, by law, permits each political party to have one, but only one, representative at a polling location to monitor the process.
• Polling locations are protected by local law enforcement and not by privately recruited, outside groups.
• The State allows no-excuse absentee voting, and has checks and balances in place to ensure legitimacy of absentee ballots.
• The State has a tradition of broad bipartisan support for voter access. Indeed, in the summer of 1965, when the U.S. Congress approved the Voting Rights Act, all four Republicans and all four Democrats in Minnesota’s House delegation and both Minnesota senators voted for passage.
• Voting machines in Minnesota go through two layers of security review before use, one federal and one state.
• Minnesota makes ballot information available in 12 different languages, including American Sign Language. Why? Because even fluent non-native English speakers benefit from receiving technical instructions in their native languages. Minnesota has been printing ballots in languages other than English since 1896.

In conclusion, the secretary of state said he is “a long-term optimist” and thinks that Minnesota will continue to lead the nation in sound voting practices. We should all do our part in helping to accomplish that objective.

Secretary of State Simon is a distinguished graduate of the U of M Law School, and many of his family members have proudly obtained degrees from the U over the years. Prior to becoming secretary of state, Simon worked as a lawyer in private practice, as an assistant attorney general of Minnesota, and, for 10 years, as a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives.

—Bradley Clary, UMRA Program Committee member