It is time to have elections again

Open letter to all Minnesota elected officials, especially city council members and town board supervisors, who want to help the citizens and perform their duty

August 26, 2024

Dear Minnesota City Councils and Town Boards,

Many believe that the current election process is 100% secure from threats and that the reported results are 100% accurate.

This email is not for those.

This email is for those that want to actually have elections.

In Minnesota, the legislators have passed bills (that others have written) to mandate electronic voting machines proven to be hackable and accessible remotely as well as made the ballot image portion of cast vote records (digital receipts) non-public data under Minnesota Statutes Chapter 13.

These changes, which reduce local choice and limit transparency, have the support of the Office of the Secretary of State, whose current head has even gone to lengths as to publicly cast shame upon those simply asking the most basic questions about security and accuracy—in early 2022 Secretary Simon said such questions were poisonous when asked by the Crow Wing County commissioners to assist in an audit of their county's 2020 general election.

This was on the heels of stacks of hundreds of unfolded (impossible) mail-in ballots seen during the Dakota County post election review. (Just one of many big issues.)

But if anything, the Secretary’s conduct has only led to more questions. In particular, it is still unclear why more than 700,000 mail-in/absentee ballots were not synced between the officially reported results and the statewide registration system already 25 days after the election (and 5 days after certification) in 2020. This is just one example of the hanky panky described by President Trump in a recent interview.

Years later, this is not a time for business as usual. Not a time for leaders lacking courage. But a time for change and a time for true leaders with courage to speak and act with integrity.

If I was an election clerk (I am not) I could NOT in good conscience use electronic equipment like the poll pads or the tabulators which both have internet and network connectivity, fully open to sophisticated cyber threats, with known exploits published online and showcased in events like DefCon 2019, a hacker conference.

You, as a city council member or town supervisor, have a decision to make.

Along with mandating electronic tabulators and removing the public's access to the ballot images, the Legislature also said ballots must be sealed immediately after polls close, seemingly to prevent hand counting by election judges seeking to check the accuracy of the machines in the precinct polling places.

The fact that this ban against hand counting has been placed into the Minnesota election codes in such a deceptive manner says a lot. It is represents a pattern as this came after the denial by many county auditors and county attorneys throughout 2022 and 2023 of the existence of cast vote records (CVR), which have been a standard since 2005 in the systems they pretend to know about but by their own words show they do not, or DO know, and yet still obfuscate or evade.

Recently, several cities in Anoka County have expressed the desire to participate in their county's post election review hand count, which usually is limited to only 3% of each county's precincts. Already those cities are not receiving positive feedback, and in presenting to cities and townships in other counties their options, efforts to downplay this opportunity have come down from the county and state levels.

Fewer and fewer thinking people in this state have any reason to trust the system as is. Given recent flaws in public accuracy tests (such as not testing enough ballots) and the revelation of modems active in the tabulators (this decertifies the tabulators), there is already enough hard evidence that preparations for a secure and accurate election have failed. (We haven’t even addressed the very weak mail-in voting process and the absentee ballot board process in this email.)

Based on this alone, all ballots in the state should be 100% hand counted in the precincts on election day, and all mail-in ballots should be transferred from the county to those precincts to be hand counted by the election judges.

Additionally, a US Senate candidate announced his intent to guard the ballots, which is possible under Minnesota Statute 209.05.

So, what will you do?

As a city council or town board, there are many ways for you to help.

Get in touch to learn about your options.

In general, the overall recommendation is to ensure you have staff and election judges trained in hand counting using the piling method which is recommended by Minnesota state statute. Work with your election clerk, staff, and even the political parties who have lists of eligible election judge volunteers.

I personally know hand counting is possible because I have witnessed first hand the success of hand recounts, with very high speed, in places like Morrison County, as well as having participated in two hand count trainings by Rick Weible of uscase.org, the attendance of which showed me there are many citizens ready to help.

You will no doubt face pressure, interference, and perhaps even threats for making moves in this direction.

One of my friends law license was suspended for bringing questions to light through her petition to stop the 2020 certification. Another of my friends has had shots fired at his house. Another was to taken to court. In every case, the facts have supported my friends, and history will show they were correct.

Secretary of State, Steve Simon, has many times said he wants to have accessible, secure, and accurate elections, or some version of that with many adjectives in front of the word ‘elections’.

Me, I just want to have elections.

No amount of words qualifying what kind of elections we will have can make me unsee the data, the lies, the misunderstandings, and outright blunders (including one auditor informing me they had committed a federal election violation when their vendor deleted digital election records), which I have learned about, experienced, or witnessed first hand. It took over three years for any news organization in Minnesota to even begin to cover what the citizens have discovered for themselves.

And I believe that elections (without any adjectives, descriptors, or qualifiers) are not only possible but will happen, with enough preparation and willingness to change.

There is a growing number of public servants who are learning and driving toward change.

If only there were more elected officials willing to put the work in to help us.

You could be one of them.

This is nearly all I have thought about for three years, and there are many like me.

It’s time for change.

It’s time to have elections again.

Thank you,

Erik van Mechelen

Ps Learn more at https://projectminnesota.com/local or read my free book on this topic: https://leanpub.com/sim2020/read

email: erikvanmechelen@proton.me