Minnesota ranks 45th in new election integrity scorecard

(The Center Square) – Minnesota ranked 45th nationally in a new report examining election integrity across all 50 states.

This is according to The Heritage Foundation’s “Election Integrity Scorecard,” which was first launched in 2021.

Don Palmer, senior legal fellow for election integrity at Heritage, spoke with The Center Square regarding the report and its results.

“On some of the most important areas like voter ID implementation . . . they had some issues,” Palmer said. “There’s probably five or six reforms that could help identify non-citizens and avoid them being on the rolls, and they don't do any of that.”

The report evaluated each state across 15 categories that the foundation considers necessary for “fair, secure, and honest elections.” States were then ranked based on the number of points they received out of 100.

The highest-weighted categories included voter ID implementation, worth 20 points; voter registration list accuracy, worth 21 points; and absentee ballot management, worth 17 points. For this year’s report, the foundation increased the weight given to citizenship-verification laws and foreign-funding restrictions.

“Americans need and deserve a secure and transparent system in which fraud can be easily detected, and where false allegations can be dispelled,” the foundation said. “Election laws should be strongly enforced by state authorities to deter election crimes or fraudulent activity. Americans need and deserve a system in which it is easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

Minnesota scored relatively well in the latter two categories but received just three of the 20 points available for voter ID implementation.

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“They just don't require any sort of photo ID for in-person voting,” Palmer said. “They also had some issues with the accuracy of the voter registration list.”

Palmer also highlighted several other categories in which Minnesota scored poorly, including citizenship verification, restrictions on automatic voter registration, and restrictions on foreign funding for state ballot measures, initiatives and referendums.

Minnesota received zero of the available points in each of those categories.

Only Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Vermont, California, and Hawaii scored worse than Minnesota, while Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida topped the report. At number one, Tennessee received 87 of the 100 points available.

To assist in the scores, The Heritage Foundation conducted an in-depth review of the laws, regulations, and procedures governing elections and their administration by election officials in every state.

The foundation, a conservative policy organization, said the report is designed to help voters, state legislators, election officials, and all Americans.

In that spirit, it plans to host a series of meetings with election integrity experts to assess how effectively states enforce their election integrity laws and incorporate those findings into its 2027 rankings.

“The general purpose of the scorecard is really to highlight the different conservative policies and integrity policies that help make our elections free and fair and accurate,” Palmer said. “We want to encourage people to vote. We want them to be confident, and so we wanted to lay out how the states are doing when it comes to the integrity of their elections.”