Minnesota intensifies review process for new automatic voter registration system

The Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office says it has implemented a manual, two-layer review process for verifying documents to be eligible for automatic voter registration.

The office says 65,339 Minnesotans have been successfully registered to vote since the state’s new automatic voter registration system was set up in April, allowing people who provide appropriate documentation when applying for or renewing their driver’s license to be registered to vote without having to opt-in.

But since the new review process started, Driver and Vehicle Services (DVS) has “flagged a small number of applicant files as needing additional confirmation of voter registration information, including address, name, and citizenship,” according to a release from the office on Thursday.

The Secretary of State’s Office says it has inactivated the voter registrations flagged by DVS “out of an abundance of caution.”

“These individuals may be still eligible to vote, but due to human error their documentation was misclassified or not properly saved to the DVS database,” said the release. They’ll be notified that they need to register to vote online, with their local election office or at their polling place on Election Day.

Minnesota House Republicans recently raised concerns about the new system, sending a letter to the Department of Public Safety, which oversees DVS, asking if any ineligible voters have been registered to vote.

“We were repeatedly told during debates that there would be no problem with ineligible voters being inadvertently registered under the new law, yet here we are with no answers to any of our questions and early voting beginning in less than two weeks,” Republican Rep. Paul Torkelson and Sen. Mark Koran, ranking minority members on election committees, said in a statement Monday.

Early voting in the 2024 general election starts on Sept 20.

The House GOP letter also asked the Department of Public Safety how many records DVS has reviewed so far and for a timeline of “when this review will be completed.” The department responded Thursday saying it had completed the review and that “DVS is not aware of anyone voting in Minnesota who was ineligible to vote.”

The manual review went over nearly 104,000 records and the Secretary of State inactivated roughly 1% pending further confirmation, according to the letter.

The Secretary of State’s Office said DVS is increasing training for front-end workers who classify documents and are now using “two distinct staff areas to double check all documentation at DVS before applicant files are sent to be registered to vote.”

The program passed the Legislature last year. Twenty-three other states and the District of Columbia already use an automatic voter registration system.

Secretary of State Steve Simon said in June that his office estimated up to 120,000 more voters could be registered by the November election through automatic registration, but the new verification system is expected to increase the time it takes for voters to be automatically registered from four to six weeks to as long as 12 weeks.

Eligible voters can still register for the general election online or in person by Oct. 15 or at their polling place on Election Day. Those who do not want to register to vote automatically have an opt-out option.