Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon is refusing to hand over voter information requested by the Trump administration. Simon says the presidential advisory commission requested info on nearly four million registered Minnesota voters that would be made available to the public. Simon says they were “asking for a lot of stuff. They were asking for things like voting history, social security information, certain conviction information whether people were active or inactive.” He says the commission has been “suspiciously” vague about what it intends to do with the information and says he has “serious doubts about the commission’s credibility and trustworthiness.” The advisory commission was set up to investigate alleged voter fraud in the 2016 election and to improve election integrity.
In a statement, Republican Senator Mary Kiffmeyer of Big Lake says:
“Secretary of State Simon should stop obstructing the President in his quest to strengthen voter integrity. Minnesotans gain nothing by pretending no one in our state ever votes illegally, but we have a lot to gain by making sure every legal vote counts. Secretary Simon already sells voter information to political parties for a small $46 fee, which doesn’t include sensitive information like Social Security numbers. The Election Integrity Commission should receive the same information that’s already publicly available to anyone else.”