In Minnesota, Trump and his allies are already rejecting the election results before Election Day – following the Election Denier Playbook. Trump Republicans are making it harder for people to vote and falsely discrediting election officials. These election deniers are calling on their MAGA constituents to harass election workers, spreading conspiracies about voting irregularities, and committing violence to get the election outcomes they want. Minnesota voters believe that for democracy to work for all of us, it must include all of us. We must come together to turn out as voters and ensure we choose who represents us.
Step 1: Refuse to Commit to Accepting Election Results Based on False Allegations of Voting Irregularities, Fraud, and Wild Conspiracy Theories.
Trump and his allies are trying to convince Minnesota voters that any Republican losses are illegitimate or fraudulent by default. Some are even refusing to concede, casting doubt on the election results by citing long-debunked allegations of voter fraud. Activists like the “Election Integrity Network” (EIN) have spent months spreading lies about the results of the 2020 election in Minnesota in tandem with the Minnesota Voters Alliance. These forces are trying to undermine the will of voters, cultivating distrust in our democratic process by alleging that the 2020 election was supposedly stolen and refusing to embrace the 2022 election results.
Trump Republicans continue to stand by his lies and conspiracy theories, and they have no plans to stand in the way of MAGA efforts to undermine the electoral process in Minnesota this November.
Step 2: Make False Claims About Election Security And Demand Changes That Limit Ballot Access.
Trump-aligned figures are relentlessly targeting Minnesota’s voting infrastructure, claiming without evidence that the process is ripe for fraud. Local election officials have noted that misinformation is fueling the spread of skepticism in Minnesota, and MAGA activists are pushing elected officials to hand-count election results in November – even though and-counting results would weaken the electoral system by re-introducing an exceedingly time-consuming, labor-intensive method with a consistently higher rate of error than ballot tabulation machines. And it’s not just hand-counts. County officials in Minnesota have spent hundreds of hours fielding conspiratorial requests demanding that administrators remove voting machines, remove e-poll books, remove ballot drop boxes, enact tedious new requirements for hand-counting ballots, and create complicated alterations to county-level absentee ballot boards.
These efforts are designed to damage the credibility of our democratic institutions and undermine trust in the electoral process. By making false claims about absentee ballots, election deniers are pushing changes to the election system that would make it much more difficult to vote in Minnesota.
Step 3: Discredit Election Officials, Especially in Areas of High Voter Turnout.
Trump Republicans are working to delegitimize election officials throughout Minnesota, particularly in areas with high turnout against their candidates. MAGA disinformation campaigns have sown widespread distrust in election administrators in Minnesota. Hundreds of far-right activists, loosely organized under the moniker “Swamp Watch,” have even attempted to target election officials by mobilizing at county board meetings, direct door-to-door canvassing campaigns, and sending waves of canvassing board complaints. These MAGA figures represent a larger movement of election deniers working to discredit the entire state’s electoral process before a single vote has been cast or counted.
Step 4: Train Supporters To Become Election Officials and Call on Supporters to Threaten Election Officials and Harass Voters.
MAGA Republicans are fueling a wave of harassment and threats of violence directed at poll workers and officials in the weeks ahead of the midterms. Following in Trump’s footsteps, MAGA groups are targeting state and local election administrators this year. Trump ally and Jan. 6 conspirator Cleta Mitchell founded the EIN, which is focused on training MAGA operatives to work in local election administration offices and inundating election offices with waves of identical records requests. They are working to plant partisan election judges and poll watchers in Minnesota election offices, training these partisan election judges to ignore local election rules, gather intel about local voting systems, and report back to the organization. As Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon declared, “This is about an organized outside effort to undermine and poison well-earned public confidence in our election system.”
Trump and his allies have spent months organizing a well-coordinated network of election deniers to threaten voters and election officials who refuse to go along with their plans – and the threats have only intensified with early voting underway.
Step 5: Undermine the Will of Voters During the Election By Rejecting the Results, Spreading Lies About Election Fraud, and Intimidating Voters.
For months, Trump and MAGA Republicans in Minnesota have been laying the groundwork to declare that unfavorable election results are supposedly rigged. State election officials are bracing for unprecedented efforts to disrupt the vote count and undermine the results. Trump and his allies are already refusing to accept the results, spreading lies about election security, discrediting Minnesota election officials, and calling on their supporters to harass election administrators with threats of violence. As we draw closer to Election Day, they will only continue working to undermine the will of American voters.
