Minneapolis Keeps DOJ Monitors 100 Feet From the Polls. House Democrats’ Observer Can Walk Right In

Minnesota’s top election official stood at a podium the day before the midterms and gave the Justice Department’s election monitors a clean bill of health. Of the August primary, Secretary of State Steve Simon said, “They abided by all applicable laws and rules.”

Then he explained why they’ll be kept 100 feet from the polls again on Tuesday.

Hennepin County, home to Minneapolis, turned down the department’s request to have monitors inside its polling places, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced Monday. Ramsey County, home to St. Paul, did the same, Simon said. It’s a repeat of the Aug. 11 primary, when both counties said no.

At the same briefing, Simon announced that House Democrats are sending an observer to Hennepin County. That one, his elections director said, can go inside.

‘Monitor the monitors’

Simon didn’t accuse the federal monitors of anything. He did the opposite. “I wanna give credit where it’s due,” he said. “They did do this during the primary. They abided by all applicable laws and rules, and we expect and hope that they will again.”

His next sentence: “So out of an abundance of caution, we’re working with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office to monitor the monitors as we did during the primary.”

The county attorney’s release says the same thing in plainer terms: “The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office has stated plans to observe the DOJ monitoring teams.” The Justice Department expects to send five or six teams of two to Hennepin County and four or five teams of two to Ramsey County, and the attorney general’s effort to watch them will probably be about that size, a state official told reporters.

So a state agency led by Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison will spend Election Day following federal monitors around the Twin Cities, after the state’s own election chief said those monitors followed every rule the last time.

Even the reason the monitors gave got Simon’s approval. They’re in Minnesota to check compliance with Voting Rights Act provisions on election materials in languages other than English. “That’s a good thing,” Simon said. “So the stated reason is a really good reason.”

Who does get in

Under Minnesota law, no one but election officials, voters and exit pollsters may stand within 100 feet of a polling place. Inside, the law allows election judges, party challengers and “representatives of the secretary of state’s office, the county auditor’s office, and the municipal or school district clerk’s office” to “observe election procedures.” Federal monitors aren’t on the list, so they need the county’s permission. Hennepin and Ramsey said no.

Congressional observers are a different story. Simon said the House minority, the Democrats, confirmed it is sending one observer to Hennepin County and one to Olmsted County, home to Rochester. The House majority, the Republicans, declined to send any. Asked how those observers differ from the DOJ monitors, State Elections Director Paul Linnell said their rights are set out at the federal level and “they are able to access polling places if they wish to do so.”

“Whereas in Hennepin and Ramsey County for the Department of Justice monitors,” Linnell went on, “they have chosen and have the right to say we would like you to stay outside of that 100-foot boundary.”

Simon himself put it this way: “For the DOJ, it’s monitors. For Congress, they have the right to send observers. They’re basically the same thing.”

Basically the same thing, except one of them gets to go inside.

The same county attorney

The release keeping the monitors out came from the office of Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty. Five days ago, Moriarty charged James O’Keefe and Cam Higby with felonies over undercover video they shot at Minneapolis polling places during that same August primary. The video showed how Minnesota’s same-day vouching system works, under which one registered voter in a precinct may vouch for up to eight people who can’t prove where they live.

“Our office is committed to ensuring free, safe, and fair elections,” Moriarty said Monday. “Any reports of potentially unlawful behavior directed at voters or election workers will be reviewed and, if appropriate, prosecuted.”

The rules for the federal monitors are spelled out in the release. They’ll be in plain clothes, they must stay outside the 100-foot line, and they may ask voters leaving the polls for an interview, which voters can decline. Simon said they carry no badges or guns. “They’re not law enforcement,” he said. “They’re just monitors.”

What happens Tuesday

Polls in Minnesota are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. The Justice Department has said it is sending about 1,000 monitors across the country, what its Civil Rights Division called its largest monitoring effort in history, and Simon said the department has agreed to honor the counties’ decision.

In the Twin Cities, that means federal lawyers on the sidewalk, state lawyers watching them, and an observer picked by House Democrats free to walk past all of them and through the door.