6 Minnesota Counties Have 515 Duplicate Registrations on Voter Rolls, Watchdog Alleges

Steven KovacSeptember 28, 2022

Six weeks before the midterm elections, election officials in six Minnesota counties are alleged to have failed to remove 515 duplicate registrations from the voter rolls in their jurisdictions, according to a complaint by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a watchdog organization dedicated to ensuring lawful and fair elections.

In September 2020, the continuing failure of many states to clean up inaccurate voter rolls led PILF to pronounce the American election system to be in a “critical condition.”

In a study of the voter rolls of 42 states, PILF analysts found that 37,889 duplicate registrants appear to have voted twice from the same address in the 2018 election.

The same report claims that 349,773 deceased people remained on the rolls of 41 states.

The foundation’s investigators also found that, in the 2018 election, 8,360 registrants appear to have voted in two states.

PILF filed the first formal complaint on Sept. 26 against an election official in Nicollet County in southern Minnesota.

Government records examined by PILF showed that two people have two different voter registration numbers, despite having the same year of birth and address.

“One of these apparent duplicate registrants … voted twice in the 2020 election. … Alarmingly, [the man] is a convicted criminal and has been committed as mentally ill and dangerous,” PILF said in a Sept. 26 statement.

According to PILF, the serial voter has a long record of criminal convictions.

J. Christian Adams, PILF’s president, said: “Duplicate registrations give people the opportunity to vote twice. It is alarming that a career criminal … had the ability to vote twice.

“He only had that opportunity because Minnesota election officials were not removing duplicate registrations as required by federal law.”

In a second complaint filed on Sept. 27, PILF analysts allege that 73 voters in Dakota County in southeastern