Two resolutions before the Minnesota Senate say a lot about the 2020 election. And the reaction to it.
The first, introduced last week by Sen. Melisa Lopez Franzen, DFL-Edina, asked the chamber to condemn the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — and declare that lawmakers accept the results of the 2020 election. Or as the resolution states, that “the peaceful transfer of power has been a foundation and hallmark of presidential elections, and we are committed to upholding the results of the free and fair election that was just held.”
The second, alternative resolution was offered by GOP Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, R-East Gull Lake. It also condemned the Capitol invasion, but it also included language that was different from Franzen’s.
“Whereas, the peaceful transfer of power has been a foundation and hallmark of presidential elections,” it stated, “… we are committed to ensuring the integrity of free and fair elections in Minnesota; and … the discourse of all elected officials should be aimed at promoting the common good.”
To Franzen, the lack of any mention in Gazelka’s resolution about the election results and the inclusion of language regarding election “integrity” — a reference to Republican allegations of voting irregularities — is not a minor difference.
“They introduced their own resolution striking literally the section that talks about free and fair elections and adding much more broad language,” Franzen said Tuesday during a DFL-sponsored press conference.
“They do not want to acknowledge it as a caucus,” she said of the election results. “That is pretty sad because that is what we need to move forward. A resolution has a strong voice when it comes from both parties in the only divided Legislature in the country.”
Officials ‘don’t get to decide if people are wrong’
Those two resolutions illustrate where Democrats and Republicans now stand, in Minnesota and nationally, even as Joe Biden takes office.
Democrats point to court cases; recounts; examinations by state elections officials; investigations by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and the Electoral College to show that allegations of a stolen election have been broadly disproven. And they draw a straight line between Republican allegations about voter fraud to misinformation about the election — from President Donald Trump down to state legislators — that fueled the mob violence at the U.S. Capitol.
“Our democracy worked,” said Rep. Emma Greenman, a DFLers from Minnesota and an election law attorney. “Yet we’ve seen the dangerous consequences when leaders irresponsibly amplify misinformation, doubt and the voter-fraud lie to undermine faith in our government.”
Minnesota Republicans were quick to condemn the violence in D.C., but slightly less quick to condemn violent rhetoric at a “Storm the Capitol” rally that took place in St. Paul on the same day.
And though some have blamed Donald Trump for inciting the mob that descended on Washington, D.C. to rally on his behalf, not as many will declare that November’s election was fair — and that Joseph Biden was the legitimate winner.
“A lot of people felt it was not a fair election,” Gazelka said at a public forum on Jan. 11. “There’s just a number of issues that have been pointed to.”
But Gazelka also said the system — of each state validating results, the electors casting ballots and the U.S. Congress counting those ballots — worked, and compared Republicans’ anger about the 2020 results with Hillary Clinton supporters complaining in 2016 of Russian interference.
The difference between the two is that there has been no court-accepted evidence of organized or widespread election fraud. Russian interference, whether decisive or not, was found by eight U.S. intelligence agencies.
“Anytime you have a very, very, very close election, you’re gonna have a lot of frustration and I think it is important that we listen,” Gazelka said.
House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, said at the same forum that he said publicly “weeks ago” that Biden was going to be the president. “I don’t think anybody’s foolish actions, either here in St. Paul or in Washington, D.C., were going to change that,” Daudt said.
But elected officials “don’t get to decide if people are wrong and shouldn’t have the opinions they have.” Instead, he said, they need to recognize that a large number of people think the election wasn’t fair.
The battle over witness signatures
In Minnesota, talk of issues and irregularities usually means a decision in the summer of 2020 by the Secretary of State, prompted by the courts, to end the requirement that voters who mailed in ballots had to have someone witness their ballot signature.
In his comments, Daudt cited a law passed last May that had bipartisan support to promote and advance mail-in voting as a response to the pandemic. But that deal stopped short of establishing a universal mail-in balloting system, as some in the DFL wanted, and it did not change the witness signature requirement for those voting by mail.
Lawsuits over Minnesota’s witness requirement, however, convinced the courts that the provision was unfair for voters locked-down during a pandemic, and the requirement was waived. “Now all of a sudden the courts are determining election law,” Daudt said.
Republicans who cite that litigation when talking about problems with the election, however, do not usually note that the witness requirement is not actually how Minnesota confirms that a registered voter is the person who cast a ballot. Rather, witnesses simply certify that the ballot was blank to start with; was cast in private; and sealed without anyone else seeing it.
To confirm a registered voter’s ballot was cast by that person, Minnesota has voters pick an identifying number — usually a driver’s license, social security or passport number — that must be included on their outer envelope along with their own signature.
For a mail-in ballot to be fraudulently cast, then, a person would have to steal a ballot, forge a signature — and know a voter’s identifying number. What’s more, that ballot would be nullified if the person whose ballot was stolen requested a new one. In challenges to the Minnesota results, no evidence has ever been presented of vote theft related to witness signatures.
‘We can’t perpetuate … this myth-making’
That line of argument — that Biden is the next president but that there were irregularities — is what DFLers have been most critical of. “Basically, those have been allegations of allegations,” said Senate Minority Leader Susan Kent, DFL-Woodbury.
All such allegations have been heard by courts and canvass boards and found lacking, Kent noted. And all have been looked at by state officials and by Trump’s own Justice Department. DFLers suggested they want more Republicans to deny claims of a stolen election as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did on the Senate floor Tuesday.
“Because so many millions of Americans now believe, because they have been told by their leaders that this election was rigged and unfair, they’re responding to that,” Kent said. “We have to recognize that we have a real responsibility to deal with facts, to deal with truth…we can’t perpetuate — for political purposes — this myth-making.”
Kent’s reference to political purposes was a nod to the problem facing many GOP elected officials. While they might not believe the allegations, they often have an electorate that does. Polls show large majorities of Republicans don’t trust the election results, and state party organizations have an even higher concentration of Trump loyalists who will accept no equivocation.
For some, questioning whether fraud happened or stating that Biden’s win is legitimate comes at a political cost, as Trump has already threatened to go after Republicans who didn’t vote to overturn the results or who voted to impeach him last week.
That has led many GOP leaders to parse their statements: to both accept the outcome of the election while not criticising Republicans who don’t. But it has also opened GOP leaders to criticism that they are fanning the flames of unrest and allowing louder voices to fill the rhetorical gap.
That dynamic was on display Tuesday. After the DFL press conference, two members of the New Republican Caucus — elected Minnesota House Republicans who do not caucus with Daudt’s GOP members — reiterated the claims of fraud based on the witness signature requirement.
And earlier this week, possible GOP candidate for governor and MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell was quoted in the New York Times welcoming a defamation lawsuit by elections equipment company Dominion Voting Systems, saying it would give him a chance to reveal the evidence he has of election fraud. This is the same person who, days earlier, visited the White House and was seen with notes that appeared to call on Trump to declare martial law and stop the transfer of the presidency to Biden.
That led a Republican campaign operative to Tweet this on Friday:
Mike Lindell cannot win and deserves no support. https://t.co/uLss6ToKLe
— Gina Countryman (@gcountryman) January 15, 2021
And the divide isn’t limited to the last election, as it has extended to how the Legislature is looking to conduct future elections.
For DFLers, the issue is a lack of election access, an issue the party is trying to remedy with a bill, HF9, that would reinstate voting rights for convicted felons upon release from incarceration; that would allow absentee voters to get a ballot each election rather than just an application for a ballot; that would increase the number of ballot drop boxes in the state; that would allow the counting of ballots postmarked by election day for up to seven days; that would expand voter intimidation and interference protections; and that would give voters “Democracy Dollars” that can be donated to candidates of their choice.
[image_credit]REUTERS/Erin Scott[/image_credit][image_caption]Mike Lindell, CEO of My Pillow, standing outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, on January 15.[/image_caption]
[cms_ad:x104]Gazelka has called this one of his caucuses top priorities along with a state budget and redistricting.
This guys have been struggling reality as long as I can remember.
“Instead, he said, [elected officials] need to recognize that a large number of people think the election wasn’t fair.”
No, they don’t. The election is over, the results certified, and if a few vociferous people want to claim the election “wasn’t fair,” that’s their problem.
Any talk of “unity” or “healing” coming from Republicans is nonsense unless and until the Republicans are prepared to state publicly that the election results are in and President Biden is legitimately the President of the United States. No one says they have to like it, and no one says they have to fall in line behind the new Administration’s agenda. They do, however, need to show less concern for the sensibilities of the large portion of their base willing to accept and act on lies.
Trump lost, and he lost decisively. Deal with it, but deal with it honestly.
Did you look into any of the claims and if so was their anything that could have maybe looked like it wasn’t right or unfair? How much media is to much for a healthy society? Would you say the Republicans have more media to spread their propaganda? Did president biden do anything wrong when on a tv interview say that he threatened to withhold 1 billion from Ukraine? Thanks if you reply. We do need unity.
“Did you look into any of the claims and if so was their anything that could have maybe looked like it wasn’t right or unfair?”
The claims were basically hearsay, and spurious anecdotes. One would think that if there were legitimate evidence of impropriety, at least one court would have followed up on it.
“How much media is to much for a healthy society?”
There is no limit. A free society requires open discourse.
“Would you say the Republicans have more media to spread their propaganda?”
Yes, they have media channels that exist largely as agitprop outlets. Republicans also use it more effectively to reinforce the epistemic closure of followers.
“Did president biden do anything wrong when on a tv interview say that he threatened to withhold 1 billion from Ukraine?”
I’m not sure what, if anything, this has to do with the integrity of the election.
“Thanks if you reply. We do need unity.”
You’re welcome. Unity requires accountability.
We know two things cannot simultaneously exist:
(1) Accepting the fact that the Constitution provides a time tested and honored way to fairly resolve our differences.
(2) Joe Biden is an illegitimate President.
Pick either one, but not both.
There are certainly plenty of historical differences on judicial opinions: Roe V Wade, Heller, Brown V Board of Education, the list is almost endless. And while differences exist, few maintain the vote was stolen on any of these cases. One side won and the other lost and the fight goes on without insurrection.
In the case of the 2020 election Trumpians want to have their cake and eat it too: Honor the Constitution and call Biden illegitimate.
If you want to call Biden illegitimate you either have to make your case for a liberal, biased SCOTUS (good luck with that) or tell us the required Constitutional changes to prevent this from happening again.
Or just follow the keen insight of the Kurt Daudt’s, Paul Gazelka’s, Michelle Fischbach’s and Jim Hagedorn’s of the world:
“You know, people say that….”
@“Anytime you have a very, very, very close election, you’re gonna have a lot of frustration and I think it is important that we listen,” Gazelka said.
It would be helpful if Sen Gazelka would explain what constitutes a “clear” or “decisive” election result, if a margin of 7 million popular votes and 30% more electoral college votes don’t do it.
I would be willing to at least think about the Republican legislators’ proposal for “proof of the right to vote” when they show me that 1% of the votes cast in Minnesota were fraudulent due to the lack of being witnessed and/or were made by people who could not have produced the affirmative ID described if they were required to do so. I’ll amend that, it doesn’t have to be even 1%: I’ll believe there is significant voter fraud in Minnesota when shown 1,000 of the ballots cast would have failed one or the other of these tests of authenticity. Not speculation – no “coulda been” or “probably were” – but actually evidenced fraud.
Some still doubtful about election outcome? Gimme a break (and I’m a conservative).
Republicans once were rational and – seemingly – understood numbers (e.g. past history of seeking to hold down deficit spending and start reducing escalating national debt). Try simple logic: except for Trump’s loss (and his sabotage of the Georgia runoffs), Republicans had considerable election success down ballot. The Democratic majority in the U.S. House is now the smallest in recent history. Republicans gained ground in some states and held it in others. Would election “fixers” stop with president and not try to provide more support in the House and states?
More important: Why are election results in other states any business of the Minnesota Legislature? Feel good about gaining a seat in the U.S. House, keeping control of the State Senate. I thought states’ rights were still important to Republicans.
When legislators can afford time for concern about the outcome of elections in other states, it seems a sure sign Minnesota has too many (well compensated) legislators with too much time on their hands.
What we need to do is bring Democrats and more traditional Republicans together and find our common ground in the world of sanity. Anyone doubting the legitimacy of this election is either living in denial or simply trying to keep themselves out in front of the rabble rousing complainers of big guvment. Anyone denying that race is an issue in our national psyche is living in the bad old days. We’re not going back there.
We can NOT normalize people clamoring about an unfair election. We must come together, whatever our particular political persuasions, and agree to reside as a country of people in general agreement about big issues things – things like no lying and following the law, moving toward environmental responsibility, finding jobs for people.
I am a fairly liberal Democrat but I have much more in common with the traditional conservative Republicans than I do with these Qanon anti-free press morons. THEY are the ones who need to be isolated by the rest of us, the more or less sane folk.
Yes. Bickering or denying the election was unfair is counterproductive. I believe it was fair and Trump had to go. We average Americans have, like generations before us for centuries, have many obstacles to struggle with. We need to invest more in education which gives people real skills like in operating a computer,keeping the sewers, toilets and faucets operational and vehicles working. Lived in an apartment in St. Paul where some neighbor, an exceptionally kind and hard working man, an immigrant from Nigeria, came home from work to find his apartment flooded with feces and urine, because of what had been flushed down the toilet in the apartment above him. My black and white neighbors collaborated to pester the management to get him into an unrented apartment and found a fold up bed so he could sleep. We had a new friend, who later saved my dog and protected my black lady friend from some people hassling her for money. That is what we need – people doing what they can to help each other.
Don Casey…you are quite conservative, but I am happy to hear you call out these lies that the election was fraudulent.
People “felt” it was not a fair election, Is Gazelka on a Barbra kick? Feelings? This ain’t a karaoke bar pal.
Exactly my thought.
Back in the day, conservatives were in favor of local control (not interfering with cities minimum wage laws), balancing budgets, and didn’t give a rat’s behind about anyone’s feelings.
Who are the these people?
ironic also is the observation that when voting fraud allegations are actually found to be factual, they often involve a Republicans as the perps. BTW, my wife and I were soooo happy to see twice impeached trump climb aboard AF1 for his last taxpayer funded trip to Florida. Now we can get better, although I am having no luck getting Mrs. Fischbach to say “Biden is President”.
Thanks to MinnPost for publishing this article.
So elected officials “don’t get to decide if people are wrong and shouldn’t have the opinions they have.” Really? “People” (constituents) have been seriously wrong in the past (eg, civil rights, woman’s rights, slavery) and elected officials needed to “do the right thing” in spite of the people being wrong, wrong, wrong.
It is time for our MN Republicans to step up and do the right thing by telling their constituents that they are wrong, it is time to accept the election and time to move on. And, it is time for Republicans to start compromising and negotiating in good faith.
Precisely. Leadership isn’t willfully doing damage to our society because you have a delusional constituency that seeks to have its delusions accepted as fact. Leadership is working to wean your delusional constituency from its delusions so it is competent to participate in civic life.
Repubs lied that the election was fraudulent and people died and our capital was attacked with the intention of capturing and killing politicians.
Repubs refuse to be safe and as a result during this pandemic, hundreds of thousands have died.
Is there anything decent about todays repub party? As of today…that’s a strong NO!
I ran across an article In Scientific American explaining how Trump took on a role as an abuser in shaping the views of his followers. Removing Trump is the first step in interrupting this relationship, but it is going to be a long time before they come back to join the rest of us in the real world. “The Shared Psychosis of Donald Trump and His Loyalists”.
“Now all of a sudden the courts are determining election law,” Daudt said.
They always did.
“A lot of people felt it was not a fair election,” Gazelka said at a public forum on Jan. 11. “There’s just a number of issues that have been pointed to.”
“A lot of people?” What people? Name three. How many people constitute “a lot?” “Feeling” something is not fair is not at all the same as something actually being unfair. What evidence has Gazelka presented – to anyone, anywhere – that the election was something other than fair?
“There’s just a number of issues that have been pointed to.” What issues? “Pointed to” by whom? What evidence has Gazelka presented – to anyone, anywhere – to support the allegation that there are unnamed, unspecified “issues” about the election other than that his presidential candidate lost?
If Gazelka’s objection is to absentee ballots (that’s the way I voted), perhaps he should read this sentence from Peter’s piece: “In challenges to the Minnesota results, no evidence has ever been presented of vote theft related to witness signatures.” Not just “some” evidence or “sparse” evidence, “NO evidence” has ever been presented. Concern over voter fraud, at least in the case of absentee ballots is a complete and total fraud in itself.
Claims of fraud from the members of the New Republican Caucus are not based on anything factual, and are themselves fraudulent. Mr. Gazelka’s “top priority” for election security is simply a tantrum – a refusal to recognize that Minnesota already has an election system that is quite secure, and that his favored candidate lost.
Note that Gazelka and others have presented zero evidence that the same election system they’ve convinced themselves is somehow corrupt is / was equally corrupt regarding votes for state, county and local candidates and issues. “Election integrity” might be a genuine issue if there was any evidence that the electoral system had serious problems, but no such evidence has been presented by critics of the system, and until some evidence has been made public, saying “A lot of people…” or “…a number of issues…” seems to me to be proof that claims of election fraud or “unfairness” are little more than sour grapes on the part of the losers.
Mr. Gazelka primarily shows us that he is not to be taken seriously.
The single individual who probably gave the greatest service to Minnesota is former Republican Governor Elmer L Anderson.
Successful business person who led on business ethics at HB Fuller, state legislator, Governor, U of M Board of Regents, “father” of Voyageur’s National Park, philanthropist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_L._Andersen#cite_note-14
The full story is told in his autobiography: “A Man’s Reach” with Lori Sturdevant.
I read it with my natural liberal bias and got to the end and said:
“WOW” To the accomplishments of this life long Republican.
It is a long, long, long downward slide to the trivial, partisan, shallowness of Kurt Daudt and Paul Gazelka.
Republican politics have been organized around fraudulent claims for decades. Naturally their instincts are to absorb this fraud into their catalogue. What you see here are Republican leaders who are essentially pleading with us to indulge their fraudulent “beliefs”.
The problem is that this catalogue of fraudulent beliefs about everything from science, to wars on Christmas, rigged elections, and the Second Amendment, has had a toxic and destructive effect on our nation and communities for decades. We never should have indulged any of this garbage to begin with, but hey, it’s free country amiright?
So now the people who were all-in with Fascism for 4 years right up to that last little bit at the very very very end… want to declare their continued credibility and save face by preserving the lie that triggered a coup. I’m not surprised, but count me out.
This was the most verified, certified, and secured election in US history, and if you don’t recognize that fact, you almost have to be an idiot. You don’t bring idiots into important decisions and governance.
two of Paul Gazelka’s top three priorities for this session are about gaining political power for his party. (adding barriers to voting because his party believes that if fewer people vote they will do better, and redistricting where he hopes to draw maps that will make it easier for his party to win legislative seats) nothing about the pandemic. nothing about income inequality (not that I expected it). heck not even anything about public safety.
no, senator gazelka’s priorities are clear: do things that help him gain power and promote the power and interests of his party. Not helping Minnesota.
The leader of Senator Gazelka’s made made 19 phone calls to the Georgia Secretary of State. The Secretary refused to answer the phone the the first 18 times, but on the 19th call, the secretary picked up. During that call, Sen. Gazelka’s leader aske the Secretary to “recalculate” the vote totals in order to give him the 13,000 votes he would need to carry the state.
Let’s get away from the notions that our elections are fraudulent as conducted, or that Sen. Gazelka had his party have any interest at all in improving them, or restoring an “election integrity” the elections have never lost. The facts as recorded with crystal clarity, that it is the Republican Party, not at the grass roots, but at the highest level who seeks to corrupt our elections.
They call for unity, but always throw in their “very sincere” doubts and concerns about the election when they absolutely know better. Kind of like their stance on masks. They’re just as adamant that we have to beat the pandemic; but, by golly, having to wear a mask causes them to lose their “freedoms.” A more pathetic clown car you couldn’t find than the one driven by Gazelka and Daudt.
If you multiply the total number of votes cast by Black Americans by 3/5 then it would indeed be a much closer election. Maybe this is behind their magical math.
Let’s not forget to notice here, that the big fallacy that led to an insurrection- voter fraud; is alive and well among these Republicans, who are doubling down on voter ID.