Tolkkinen: It ain’t so easy to cheat in an election

An Itasca County woman who authorities say tried to vote for Donald Trump on behalf of her deceased mother just proved Minnesota’s election officials right.

It’s not so easy to cheat in an election.

People try.

Bradley Haugen of St. Cloud tried in 2020. A convicted felon, he had applied for an absentee ballot knowing he couldn’t vote.

In 2018, Abdihakim Amin Essa of Minneapolis, who wasn’t a citizen, tried to vote, and also falsified multiple absentee ballot applications.

In 2016, Michelle Marie Landsteiner sent in an absentee ballot for a household member who had moved to Illinois.

This week, authorities said Danielle Christine Miller of Nashwauk in Itasca County attempted to vote on behalf of her mother, who died in August. The trouble was that her mother’s name was on a list of deceased Minnesotans that is sent weekly to county offices.

The good news? None of their votes counted. Haugen was caught before he voted. Essa’s ballots were disqualified. Landsteiner’s ballot was flagged before it was counted. Each of them was convicted of election-related crimes. The maximum penalty for election fraud is a $10,000 fine and/or five years in prison.

Voter fraud is rare in Minnesota judging by the small number of prosecuted cases. Even rarer? The number of fraudulent votes that count toward an election.

“The system worked,” the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office said after Miller’s arrest in an emailed response to questions.

There are people who are convinced our elections are rigged, and their leaders are loud and implacable. One woman on the MAGA Rocks and Cows Facebook page wanted me to cover election fraud, but when I asked for a list of incidents, instead of providing one, she leveled insults at journalists and election officials. Journalists are happy to investigate fraud, but there’s got to be a “there” there. We need more proof than a discredited video like 2000 Mules.

That’s not to say there aren’t weaknesses in our voting system. Someone in a household could cast an absentee ballot on behalf of a family member who doesn’t care or who is under the other’s control — although they could get caught if they forge a signature. Some counties use ballot drop boxes from the COVID era, which could be vulnerable to vandalism, given the drop boxes set on fire recently in Oregon and Washington states.

Stearns County has one drop box monitored by five cameras, said auditor/treasurer Randy Schreifels, which would record the front and rear of a car as well as three other angles. You can also only drop off one ballot. Any more than that, you have to bring them into the county office. And each person is allowed to bring in only three ballots, although he wasn’t certain if that was three ballots total or three ballots at a time.

“After the election, you probably look at does that make sense anymore, to have that box,” he said. “But the number of ballots that get dropped off there are very low.”

Other places, like Winona and Roseau counties, have chosen not to have a drop box, citing the cost of monitoring it full time. If anybody accidentally drops their ballot in another county box, like a payment box, it will be disqualified, and signs make that clear, said Chelsi Wilbright, Winona County auditor/treasurer.

Martie Monsrud, Roseau County auditor/recorder/treasurer, said each county election staff goes through 3½ days of training with the Secretary of State’s Office, and then has to test every voting machine more than once to make sure it counts ballots accurately. They have to run through each ballot, as a single polling place may have multiple kinds of ballots depending on district lines for school districts, soil and water conservation boards, and others. Machine testing itself takes up to two weeks.

“If they only knew the processes and steps we go through prior to any of that they would be amazed and wouldn’t have to question the integrity,” Monsrud said.

Still, even after learning about all the steps, one Winona County township board member told Wilbright he wasn’t convinced. He didn’t think they tested the machines enough, that they were programmed to begin flipping ballots well after 100 votes had been cast in order to avoid detection.

“My response was, we do a post-election equipment test too, where we hand-count certain races,” she said. So integrity tests take place not just on the front end, but after the fact as well.

Schreifels did say that election critics seem to have dwindled after the public was invited to watch the election process.

Without free and fair elections, our nation will crumble. Our nation will also crumble if our elections are free and fair but nobody trusts them. I’m sure the vast majority of Minnesotans would rather their candidate lose an election rather than win by fraud. I know I would.