Poll pad choice in HF1800

Good afternoon Pat, cc Representative Quam and Representative Altendorf

Just saw this and wrote immediately... Still possible to give public testimony by Zoom for HF1800 at 1pm tomorrow?

If not able to give public, here's my Written Testimony.

Written Testimony:

Even though it is preferred to have single issue bills, here are comments on my overall support for this bill.

1. Section 5: Municipal choice regarding electronic rosters - As the KNOWiNK poll pads have been confirmed to provide centralized access to election data at precincts, under no condition can cities/towns/school-boards be mandated or forced to use them under penalty of felony or otherwise, because their non-use may actually be the more sensible approach to avoid scalable manipulation
2. Section 24: Access to Cast Vote Records - In 2022 and 2023, numerous county auditors and county attorneys—and even the MNSOS—seemed to either deny the existence or fail to turn over these basic electronic tabulator receipts, either in comma delimited or in ballot image versions, only for the 93rd Legislature to not only acknowledge their existence but also make the ballot images non-public --> this very likely deliberate misdirection from local government, including the MNSOS, who may have provided direction on same, led to widespread warranted distrust of the gatekeepers of Minnesota elections
3. Section 25: Expanded Post-Election Review - Any municipality (or county) that wishes to expand their hand count audit should have full capability to do so. The fact that election judges, starting in 2024 with the Legislative change, were no longer permitted to hand count ballots on election day (being asked to "immediately seal" ballots after close of polls looks like a sleight of hand to prevent basic accountability fully within the training of election judges statewide, and provided for in the MNSOS's own hand count guidelines. In 2024, for just one example, the Anoka County Canvassing Board seemed to ignore the specific requests of 7 cities by simply adding 4 random COUNTY-level precincts to their drawing, instead of also including precincts (one or more) from those 7 cities whose councils had passed resolutions requesting expanded and down ballot audits through the normal post-election review process.
4. Section 26: Down Ballot Post-Election Review - For decades, the omission of ANY audit of down ballot races in Minnesota is a clear example NOT of Minnesota's high standard but of its acceptance and tolerance of BLIND TRUST in an election process which includes no-questions asked 46-day absentee/mail-in and a highly centralized electronic system including modem-enabled tabulators (2-way cellular modem) and either wifi or cellular connected electronic KNOWiNK poll pads, which one Mayor Rick Weible of St. Bonifacius in 2016 hacked into within 5 minutes (leading to declining the contract with Hennepin County) and already 2 cities in Anoka County, Oak Grove (for a 2nd time) and Ramsey (in 2024/2025) have cancelled, causing considerable alarm for the county staff and the MNSOS Steve Simon, as evidenced by his erroneous contributions to a threatening letter sent by the Anoka County Elections Department to EVERY Anoka County election judge prior to the 2024 general election, wherein the Anoka County Attorney Brad Johnson suggested he would hand out felonies to any election worker not using the electronic KNOWiNK poll pads
5. NOT LISTED, Hand Count CHOICE (PLEASE CONSIDER A SEPARATE BILL HERE) - Municipalities and Counties should have CHOICE of whether to use electronic tabulation AND the choice to hand count in parallel (if choosing electronic tabulation) because forcing the use of electronic systems is self-evidently weak at best from accuracy, security, reliability, transparency, and auditability standpoints, just to name a few.

Some basic ideas for additional SINGLE ISSUE bills are available at https://projectminnesota.com/beautiful

Thanks,

Erik van Mechelen