Reality Check: Voting Irregulaties In 2016
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Six weeks after the turbulent presidential election, top Minnesota officials say there's no evidence of illegal voting in the state, especially the kind President-elect Donald Trump predicted.
"They even want to try to rig the election at the polling booths," Trump said repeatedly at campaign rallies before the election. "And believe me, there's a lot going on in so many cities that are corrupt -- and voter fraud is very, very common."
Contrary to pre-election predictions, there is no evidence after the election of vote rigging, fraud, double voting, or any widespread conspiracy.
That's including Minnesota, where citizens voted in record numbers, earning the country's top spot for voter turnout at 74.4 percent.
"There was was no rigging," Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said. "There was no fixing."
Six weeks after all Minnesota's votes were counted, Secretary Simon says there is, so far, not a single case of voter irregularity.
"The reports we got from all 87 counties and municipalities across Minnesota is that we had a very fair, very clean, very honest, very open, very transparent election," Simon said.
President-elect Trump made election rigging a centerpiece of his campaign, even falsely tweeting – after he won – that millions of people voted illegally.
However, there is no proof of that. A 50-state survey of Secretaries of State by the New York Times found no credible evidence of widespread fraud among the 137.7 million votes cast. That doesn't mean there aren't unfounded complaints.
One Minnesota County attorney investigated a local voter who was reported not legally eligible to vote. In fact, he was.
The New York Times reports in Tennessee: there are 40 credible allegations out of 4.3 million votes. In Georgia, there 25 fraud claims out of 4.1 million votes. Here in Minnesota there are no credible complaints so far out of 2,968,281 votes cast.
"The votes were just as they were reported, and we feel very, very confident about the integrity of the system in Minnesota," Simon said. "So not only are we number one, but we got there honestly."
Republicans in Minnesota say election-law violations still exist, but are hard to track. Minnesota voters rejected a constitutional amendment just a few years ago that would have required photo I.D. at the voting booth.
GOP leaders say they may bring voter I.D. back in some form when they take over the state senate next year. Senator Mary Kiffmeyer, (R) Big Lake, the incoming Chair of the Minnesota Senate Government Finance and Elections Committee, says voters support the "concept" of voter I.D. as a way to ensure ballot integrity.
"There were people that didn't like the idea of changing the constitution, or there was some confusion interjected into the discussion," Kiffmeyer said.
