Balance of power

Hennepin County caught illegally staffing ballot board.

Just weeks before the 2024 election, Hennepin County was exposed by the Minnesota Voters Alliance (MVA) and the Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC) for illegally staffing its ballot board, which is responsible for reviewing and either accepting or rejecting all absentee ballots for voters in a number of cities within the county.

What made the staffing illegal? Despite clear state law requiring it, Hennepin County did not include any Republican-affiliated election judges on its absentee ballot board.

On Oct. 29, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously against the county, ordering officials to comply with state law and correctly appoint judges from the list provided by the Republican Party — but not before more than 200,000 absentee ballots were already reviewed and accepted by the illegally staffed board, as then-state Republican Party chair David Hann told the Star Tribune.  

This means that Hennepin County was not complying with state law for 41 days of the 46-day state election “season.”  

The reason for this long delay in the correction of the board? According to UMLC senior counsel James Dickey, “The delay was entirely on the county. We asked for the names of the board members in August, well before absentee voting. The county originally said it wouldn’t even give up the names. We had to threaten a lawsuit over that illegality before they finally turned over the data revealing even worse illegality.”  

MVA and UMLC moved fast when they received the names on Oct. 4 and filed a lawsuit, complete with sworn statements in support, on Oct. 15.  

More than one in four Minnesotans voting in the 2022 election cast an absentee ballot. That puts the spotlight on the absentee ballot boards responsible for processing and verifying votes more than ever. Under Minnesota state law, counties, cities, and other entities must balance the makeup of these boards by including election judges from both political parties to ensure impartiality.  

“Minnesota election law is clear: Party balance for election judges on absentee ballot boards is necessary to prevent partisan influence and protect voter trust,” Dickey said in a statement.  

In a bizarre rebuttal, Hennepin County officials argued they had “exhausted” the list of election judges put forward by the Republican Party because they merely forwarded the names directly to city election offices before staffing their own ballot board. The county seemingly believed sending the names to cities for use as election-day judges meant they could appoint their own staff to serve on the board.  

The county also claimed in its brief that since none of the submitted names lived in the specific precinct where the ballot board activities were taking place, they were in compliance with state law. The county wanted the court to say that only folks living in a high-rise in downtown Minneapolis were eligible to be election judges on the county board.  

Fortunately, the court was not convinced of this creative legal reasoning, unanimously granting the petition submitted on behalf of the Republican Party of Minnesota, MVA, and several election judges. County officials were ordered to dust off the list of election judges and appoint them properly to their ballot board by Nov. 1.  

This is a victory for election integrity that could help restore Minnesotans’ wavering faith in their election process (nearly 25 percent are not confident in the integrity of elections in our state, according to the Fall 2024 Thinking Minnesota Poll). But with more than 200,000 absentee ballots approved by an illegally staffed board while the county waited to respond to MVA and UMLC’s public data practices request, it’s a shame the correction didn’t come sooner.  

“All Minnesotans benefit from knowing that whichever party they affiliate with, counties and cities evaluating absentee ballots must have representation from their party in that process,” said Dickey in an Oct. 29 press release. “All counties and cities across Minnesota should take notice: You must exhaust both parties’ election judge lists when constituting your ballot boards. If you do not, expect to hear from UMLC.”