NEWS RELEASE
Rep. Mike Freiberg
Minnesota House of Representatives
District 43B – 651-296-4176 – rep.mike.freiberg@house.mn.gov
5th Floor, Centennial Office Building, St. Paul, MN 55155
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Marlee Schlegel
651-296-9873 or marlee.schlegel@house.mn.gov
May 6, 2026
House Democrats Defeat GOP Attempts to Restrict Voting Access; Pass Good Governance Elections Bill
SAINT PAUL, Minn. - Today, the Minnesota House took up HF4240, a straightforward, no-nonsense Elections bill that strengthens election integrity, ensures funding for counties and cities to hold special elections, provides greater flexibility for cities administering absentee voting, standardizes the use of the statewide voter registration system across elections, and clarifies early voting procedures and recordkeeping requirements.
Prior to final passage, House Democrats defeated several attempts by Republicans to amend the bill and make it harder for Minnesotans to cast their ballot.
Rejected Republican voter suppression amendments include:
A mini and unworkable version of the federal SAVE America Act that would require the Secretary of State to verify citizenship without any instruction on how to do so;
Requiring the Secretary of State to hand over sensitive voter information — including social security numbers — to the federal government for a suspected national voter database that would be used to de-register eligible voters;
Eliminating Minnesota’s same-day voter registration system and replacing it with a provisional ballot system where thousands of Minnesotans would have to make a separate trip to the city clerk’s or county auditor’s office after election day for their vote to be counted;
Delete records of deceased voters that election officials rely on to catch voter fraud; and
Prohibiting eligible voters from resolving administrative issues with otherwise valid voter registration, instead deeming them ineligible to vote.
DFL Chair of the Elections Committee and author of the bill Rep. Mike Freiberg (DFL – Golden Valley) released the following statement:
“Once again, Republicans are fabricating issues to try to sneak voter suppression tactics past Minnesotans. We’ve seen this film before — Kansas implemented a proof of citizenship requirement to vote in 2013, and before it was ultimately struck down as an unconstitutional barrier, the law resulted in shutting out over 31,000 eligible voters from voting.
“Politicians who believe in their ideas and deliver for the people don’t need to rig the rules to win.”
The bill ultimately passed on a vote of 119-15 — without voter suppression language tacked on.
###