Voting by non-citizens is not a problem in Minnesota, officials say

There is no evidence that voting by non-citizens is a problem in local or state elections, election officials say.

Secretary of State Steve Simon’s office has responded to recent questions about non-citizens voting in Minnesota with a consistent message.

“Our office has no indication that noncitizen voting is a problem in Minnesota or nationally,” Cassondra Knudson, Simon’s deputy communications director, said in a Jan. 23 email to The Daily Signal, a blog published by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington.

That message also was echoed by local election officials. Every official questioned by the Northern Light Region said voting by non-citizens was not a problem in Lake of the Woods County or Baudette.

Despite that consistent message by state and local officials, U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Duluth, said in a Facebook post on Jan. 31 that Simon “owes us clear answers on the very troubling allegations of non-citizens voting in Minnesota and what measures he’s taking to ensure only citizens are voting in our elections.”

He also signed a letter that was sent on Jan. 31 from the U.S. House Committee on House Administration to Simon asking him to detail “what steps your office will take to investigate claims that DACA recipients and other non-citizens are voting in Minnesota’s elections …”

Stauber represents Minnesota's 8th Congressional District, which includes Lake of the Woods County.

Allegations that DACA recipients and other non-citizens are illegally voting appear to stem from a Jan. 14 tweet by State Rep. Walter Hudson, R-Albertville.

His tweet contains a 13-second video of Angelica Bello, a self-identified DACA recipient, testifying on Jan. 10 in front of the Minnesota House Transportation Finance and Policy Committee about House File 4.

The legislation, which the Senate passed Feb. 21 and sent to Gov. Tim Walz to sign, would allow state residents to get a driver’s license or state identification card regardless of their immigration status. It had nothing to do with elections or voting.

“Her words stand on their own merits and people can draw whatever inference from them they will,” Hudson said about the 13-second video he shared.

Eli Mansour, a spokesman for Stauber, said in an email that the video showed “a self-described noncitizen claiming to vote at a hearing in the state legislature.”

That did not happen.

Bello, who testified for nearly 5 1/2 minutes, said she was a student at Augsburg University in Minneapolis.

She told lawmakers she was representing Augsburg, Indigenous Roots in St. Paul, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center in Minneapolis, and the Education Department of the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul.

She made it clear her testimony was on behalf of larger “communities.” She also told lawmakers, “I stand with a lot of youth” and “I have a lot of friends and a lot of people around me …”

“Know your humanity, and know that you all are in these chairs because of us, who are voting,” Bello said. “Our people are voting.”

Bello never said she voted. She never said DACA recipients voted. And she never said non-citizens voted.

(Watch Bello testify. Her testimony begins at the 41:57 timestamp.)

Hudson told The Daily Signal in its Jan. 24 post that “[n]oncitizens voting has definitely been a known issue.”

But it doesn’t seem to be a big issue according to a map of election fraud cases maintained by The Heritage Foundation, which publishes The Daily Signal.

There have been six cases of election fraud in Minnesota since 2020, according to the conservative think tank’s map. Only one of those cases involved a non-citizen.

It would be very costly for Bello or any DACA recipient to vote illegally, which is a felony in Minnesota.

The DACA program’s protection from deportation is only available to those who have not committed a felony, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. One serious misdemeanor is enough to disqualify someone from the program.

Voting illegally also would be costly for anyone who wants to become an American.

“A person who wants future citizenship risks a lot more than the chance to vote for a particular candidate in a single election,” said Erik Tange, Lake of the Woods County deputy auditor/treasurer. “A non-citizen that registers early risks not becoming a citizen at all.”

There is a database of people in the U.S. with visas, he said. And when a person applies for citizenship, part of the background check looks for prior voter registrations.

“Minnesota has a variety of rigorous election security measures in place before, on, and after Election Day to ensure our elections are fair and secure,” Simon said in a letter he sent to the U.S. House Committee on House Administration on Feb. 13.

Those measures include a centralized database, the Statewide Voter Registration System, that makes sure each voter only has one registration, he said.

When voters register they must provide their name, date of birth, driver’s license or Minnesota ID card number and the last four digits of their Social Security number, Tange said.

That information is verified through Minnesota Department of Driver and Vehicle Services and Social Security Administration databases, he said.

If a person’s driver’s license or Social Security number can’t be verified, the Secretary of State’s office notifies the county so they can investigate further, Tange said.

Voter addresses also are verified, Simon said.

The Minnesota Department of Driver Vehicle Services provides a list of non-citizens who are in the state on temporary visas, he said. If any matches are found, the person’s voting record is challenged at the county level.

After election day, voters’ records are marked to indicate who cast ballots, the Statewide Voter Registration System checks for anyone who voted more than once, and database matches are run again to identify any potential people who are ineligible to vote who may have done so anyway, he said.

Those checks include a database search on non-citizens from the Department of Public Safety, Simon said.

Between 2018 and 2021 there were 57 convictions for voting-related crimes in Minnesota, Simon said. During that time, nearly 6 million votes were cast.

The Secretary of State’s data on how many people have been convicted for voting-related crimes in Minnesota comes from the Minnesota Judicial Branch. There are more convictions and the data is more accurate than what The Heritage Foundation reported on its map.

“My office encourages anyone with evidence of an individual registering or casting a ballot while ineligible to bring this information forward to local law enforcement for investigation,” Simon said.

“Any allegation of registering or voting while ineligible is taken seriously by the county election officials and local law enforcement – the entities with investigative powers over these matters under Minnesota law,” he said.