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The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project filed a lawsuit on Friday against Minnesota’s Secretary of State and Department of Public Safety over issues related to maintaining an accurate voter roll ahead of the 2024 election.
“The Oversight Project has already uncovered evidence of noncitizens admitting on camera to being registered to vote in Minnesota in the upcoming election,” Kyle Brosnan, chief counsel of the Oversight Project, shared in a statement.
“We also know that election integrity leaders have been communicating with Minnesota election officials for months with credible evidence of noncitizens appearing on Minnesota’s voter rolls. The silence from Minnesota election officials on this important issue speaks volumes,” he added.
In September, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety informed the state’s congressional delegation that, in collaboration with the Minnesota Secretary of State, it had deactivated around 1,000 voters from the state’s rolls. This action followed a manual review of nearly 104,000 individuals registered through the Driver and Vehicle Services Division.
Election integrity advocates in Minnesota have also supplied officials with information to help remove known noncitizens from the voter rolls. Despite having this data for several months, state election officials have reportedly not acted on it.
Last month, the Oversight Project filed open records requests with the Minnesota Secretary of State and the Department of Public Safety, seeking details about the number of voters deactivated after the internal audit, the reasons for their removal, and whether they had voted in previous elections. Both offices have yet to respond to these requests.
“Of the approximately 1,000 voters we know were removed, how many are noncitizens? This is a simple question and Minnesota election officials have not answered it. These officials have not been transparent with elected leaders from the state and have ignored our open records request,” Brosnan stated.
The contrast between similar issues in other states like Alabama also drew scrutiny.
“While the Biden-Harris administration has brought ridiculous lawsuits against Alabama and Virginia for their voter roll maintenance efforts, which removed thousands of noncitizens from the voter rolls, the Justice Department is curiously uninterested in Minnesota’s voter roll maintenance efforts. We will continue fighting for transparency on this important election integrity issue,” Brosnan concluded.