ST. PAUL, MN – Rep. Duane Quam (R–Byron), GOP Chair of the House Elections Finance and Government Operations Committee, issued the following statement after the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon for refusing to provide a copy of the statewide voter registration list:
“This lawsuit is exactly what we warned would happen months ago when Secretary Simon refused to comply with a lawful request from the Department of Justice. Rather than working with federal officials to ensure Minnesota’s compliance with the Help America Vote Act, the Secretary chose to stonewall, which has now exposed our state to costly litigation while we face a $6 billion budget deficit.
Minnesota recently saw two voter fraud convictions, so it is perfectly reasonable that the Department of Justice would want to take a closer look at voter integrity. Past audits by the Office of the Legislative Auditor also identified tens of thousands of questionable registrations flagged by the HAVA-SSA verification system. In 2018, it was further revealed that the Secretary of State’s office failed to disclose more than 16,000 bad registrations from the 2016 election. With this history and serious election integrity concerns, the DOJ’s request should not have come as a surprise to the Secretary of State.
Election integrity is too important to play politics with. Instead of protecting Minnesotans, the Secretary of State has put taxpayer dollars and voter confidence at risk. Transparency, accountability, and cooperation with federal oversight must happen to restore trust in our elections.”
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