In a real eyebrow-raiser of a hearing in Minnesota, the state’s Elections Director practically admitted in a very contentious hearing, during which he was pressed by a fiery Republican, that the state’s voting procedures and policy of giving drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens mean those illegal aliens could potentially have voted.
The Republican doing the questioning on that front was State Rep. Patti Anderson, who demanded that Minnesota Elections Director Paul Linnell explain what was going on with the state’s immigration policies in the wake of news that a few hundred people in the state had been caught illegally registering to vote, and two pleaded guilty to crimes connected to that scandal.
For reference, as was reported by CBS News, somewhere between 500 to 600 fraudulent voter registration applications were caught in 13 different county election offices, with Carver County election workers catching the fact that the names and addresses used on the forms were not representative of real county residents. Investigators then discovered that two workers for an unnamed foundation had been involved in the voter registration fraud.
As could be expected, that sparked an uproar and outrage. Republican state Rep. Kristin Robbins, for example, the chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Committee, said, as CBS News also reported, “It’s very significant that they said today this is 13 counties and between 500 and 600 fake voter registrations, and that’s from just two of the independent contractors that worked with this group.”
But it was Rep. Anderson who really brought the heat when pressing Linnell. She said, “Under that scenario, someone could. They get their driver’s license, again, because we give them to anybody here. They register to vote, it doesn’t match with the Social Security number, so they’re flagged. But they come in as long as they have an ID, which is that driver’s license, and they sign that they are, you know, eligible to vote, they can vote, and they’re then no longer flagged.”
Linnell responded with a lengthy ramble of a word salad that all but admitted the fact that, thanks to the Minnesota law providing drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens, they could vote. He said, “Madam Chair, if I could add the and maybe stepping back from those that are flagged as CID on the roster for anyone that’s presenting documentation to register to vote. That is affirmation of their identity. The driver’s license has not been used as proof of citizenship for the purposes of registering to vote. It’s affirming that they are who they say they are.”
Continuing with the nonsensical word salad, he then went on to claim, “So in any of these cases where someone were to cast a ballot if they were ineligible to vote. There are also reports that are generated post-election for voters that are challenged that counties will run to show status of voters that have been updated due to the fact that they’ve now cast a ballot that can be reviewed and referred to the county attorney.”
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Anderson, for her part, wasn’t putting up with his nonsense. Noting that he had effectively confirmed her point with his tiresome ramble to the legislators, she said, in response, “Okay, so the answer is yes to my question.” Watch the exchange here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video