Beginning on September 23rd, when early voting begins, Minnesota will be choosing an overseer of Minnesota’s free and fair elections, the Minnesota Secretary of State.
Stop yawning, because this issue has become a big deal.
This is an era in which Trumpist Republicans now scream “fraud” any time they have fewer certified votes than their opponent. Because of that, the choice of Secretary of State has suddenly become one of the most important choices on your ballot.
Republicans have nominated someone named Kim Crockett to run against DFL incumbent Steve Simon. Having effectively and efficiently managed the election system with the highest turnout in the nation, Simon has earned reelection.
Meanwhile, Trumpist Crockett, the former head of an ultra-conservative policy think tank, champions anti-democratic views.
- Denying Certified Results. Crockett is an election denier who rejects the findings about the 2020 presidential election, which were checked and re-checked and re-re-checked by dozens of non-partisan election officials, auditors, and judges. Her partisan attitudes about non-partisan vote counting and auditing in 2020 telegraph the partisan manner in which she would oversee vote counting and auditing in the future. It seems clear that she would reject foundational democratic values in favor of partisanship, and that could effectively disenfranchise many Minnesota voters.
- Dismantling Proven System. Despite the fact that Minnesota has the best voter turnout in the nation, Crockett insists that Minnesota’s current must be destroyed and rebuilt to her liking. She wants to make voting more difficult, not easier, such as by pushing to restrict mail voting, erecting participation barriers, and shrinking early voting periods. Unconscionable.
- Promoting Bigotry and Elitism. Crockett even questions whether Americans with disabilities and non-English speakers should be permitted to vote:
“So, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that indeed you can help an unlimited number of people vote if they are disabled or can’t read or speak English, which raises the question, should they be voting? We can talk about that another time.”
No, how about we talk about that now?
So, please do your research on this race, and don’t stop voting after the top few choices at the top of the ballot. This Secretary of State vote matters a lot more than it might seem at first blush.
Thank you, Joe. This is so important!
Thanks, Mary!
Stop and think for a minute about Crockett’s questioning of whether American citizens who are disabled and those who need help with the English language should be able to vote.
A disabled veteran of war? A disabled elderly relative, friend, or neighbor?
A fully documented American citizen who has been working hard, playing by the rules, and paying taxes for years, yet still struggles with imperfect English language skills? (In other words, someone very much like one of our hard-working immigrant ancestors?)
She wants to deny those American citizens one of the very most important American rights, the right to vote?
Crockett’s comment is an instructive view into what looks to be an unimpressive brain and/or a very dark heart.
Both Secretary Simon and A.G. Keith Ellison are in more electoral jeopardy than anyone seems to realize. In the August 9th primary, while Gov. Walz and Lt. Gopv. Flanagan received 95% of the DFL vote against token opposition by a perennial candidate, as one might expect, another perennial candidate filed against Steve Simon was able to run up an extraordinary vote percentage in the primary, ranging from 19% in the 5th CD (1 in 5 DFL voters) to 41% in the 7th CD (2 in 5 DFL voters!) Simon’s token opponent, without campaigning, polled over 30% of DFL votes in the 2nd, 6th, and 8th CD’s, and over 40% in the 1st and 4th CD’s.) This shows how the Trump Big Lie about so-called “election fraud” has saturated the thinking of even loyal DFL voters. Even in the metro districts (3rd, 4th, 5th) Mr. Simon still lost 1 DFL voter in 5. This is NOT GOOD! The similar pattern of protest votes in the A.G. primary was not as severe, but still ran into double digits in 6 out of 8 CD’s.
Interesting and scary. I was out of town during the primary, so didn’t bother to look very closely at those races.
Steve Simon’s DFL opponent’s name was Steve Carlson. I have to think simple confusion or inattention explains a lot of this.
How could the Republicans possibly nominate a wacko like this that is proposing such undemocratic ideas?
Because I know you, I know you know the answer. But I’ll take a crack at articulating it.
For most of my life, Republicans believed in democracy. They believed in running hard, counting the votes, and accepting the results that are checked and certified by nonpartisan officials. Democrats and Republicans had almost nothing in common back then, but they used to at least have that in common.
Tragically, that’s changed. Trumpist Republicans, who are the large majority in that shrinking party, now believe and accept in the results when they get more votes, but they will stop at nothing to overturn the outcome of elections when they have fewer votes. They simply don’t believe in democracy any more. Because Trumpist Republicans control party caucuses and primary elections, anti-democratic leaders like Crockett get put on the ballot.