Minnesota Secretary of State says unattended ballots in Edina "unacceptable"
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota's top election official is urging local governments to double-down on security in the final push to Election Day, after a driver was caught on camera in Edina leaving ballots unattended in the trunk of a car.
Surveillance video shows those ballots were not tampered with, and Hennepin County officials said in a statement following the incident that when they compared the absentee ballots with the record in a statewide voter registration system, there was a 100% match. That's a routine check during the process, they said.
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"What happened the other day in Edina is totally and completely unacceptable. It's really a betrayal of the good laws that we have in Minnesota. Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of people who run elections around Minnesota—our friends, our neighbors and counties and cities—they're doing it right," said Secretary of State Steve Simon.
He noted that ballot transfers are normal—they have to get from the city to the county where they'll be counted—but leaving them unattended is not. His office immediately sent out a bulletin to all local election partners reminding them of the chain of custody and that ballots must always be secure.
Simon acknowledges the moment comes at a fraught time as some sow doubt about the integrity of this election, following debunked claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020.
But the good news is, he said, 79% of Minnesotans have high or moderate confidence in the 2024 election results, according to a recent Minnesota Star Tribune poll.
"There's no question that an episode like this gives an opening to those who are trying to peddle the false message that there are widespread problems with security in our election," he said.
On Thursday, state Republicans are expected to hold a news conference to "address ongoing concerns with election integrity and Minnesota's election laws" in wake of the ballot flap.
"It is of the utmost importance that Minnesota voters feel confident that their votes are secure and counted, regardless of when they vote," David Hann, chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota said in a news release. "Unfortunately, Secretary Simon and the DFL Trifecta have broken voters' trust yet again with this most recent incident."
So far, more than 700,000 Minnesota voters have requested absentee ballots and more than 330,000 of them have been accepted, according to data from the secretary of state's office as of last Thursday.