Politics

ST. PAUL (AP) ― Minnesota's top election official turned back questions about potential voting fraud on Friday, saying the state has a sound election system that's recognized as the nation's best.
  
Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a Democrat, responded to allegations from a conservative group called Minnesota Majority, which has a past relationship with his Republican predecessor. That group has said the voter rolls in Minnesota contain voters who are more than 100 years old and live at unoccupied addresses.
  
Ritchie denied the allegations, saying that the state voter database lists voters who registered before 1983 -- when birth dates weren't required -- with birth years of 1900, 1850 or 1858. He presented a flowchart showing how voter registrations are verified, including crosschecking applicants against a driver's license database and verifying addresses by sending postcards that bounce back if they can't be delivered.
  
"Our system is recognized as the premier system in the country," said Ritchie, who defeated Republican Mary Kiffmeyer two years ago. He said it was a political strategy to cast doubt on the system's integrity.
  
But GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty said the allegations deserve a closer look, although he acknowledged there's no evidence of significant fraud or abuse in Minnesota.
  
"Integrity of elections goes to the very foundation of our democratic process," he said at a separate Capitol news conference. "And if there are substantiated allegations of voter fraud anywhere in the country, that is a very serious matter."
  
That view was echoed by Jeff Davis, who heads Minnesota Majority. He pushed Ritchie to delve deeper into what he characterized as suspect voter information -- although he acknowledged that his group's analysis does not prove that voter fraud has occurred. He said it raises troubling questions about who's voting.
  
"If I were the secretary of state, I would be all over this," Davis said.
  
Davis said Kiffmeyer -- now a candidate for the state House -- worked as a consultant with his group last year but ended her association with Minnesota Majority earlier this year.
  
In the state with the often highest voter turnout, Ritchie and other election officials expect turnout to break records on Nov. 4. Election managers in Minneapolis and other populous areas said they have ordered two ballots for every registered voter, because Minnesota allows voters to register at the polls on Election Day.
  
Starting on Monday, Ritchie's office will check voter rolls against driver's license records for immigrants whose licenses indicate that they're living in the country on time-limited visas. Those checks will happen at least twice before Election Day, said Deputy Secretary of State Jim Gelbmann. But they won't catch ineligible immigrants who have open-ended visas or green cards, he added.
  
Those checks and address verification are also done for voters who register on Election Day, but there's sometimes a lag of months before results are known.
  
It's a felony under state law for an ineligible person to intentionally vote.
  
Local election officials said when they find potentially ineligible voter registrations, they forward the names to county attorneys for possible prosecution. Ramsey County elections manager Joe Mansky said his office has forwarded 16 names to the county attorney in the past three months. That's out of 317,000 registered voters.
  
"We're very confident of the accuracy of our voter records," Mansky said.
  
Ritchie said Minnesota's system of checks ensures that voters who don't appear in driver's license records or whose mail can't be delivered are required to produce identification when they go to vote.

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