Trusting our good neighbors for election security

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Monique LaCroix for many years donned a clown costume to do a “Magic of Reading” show for kids at local public libraries in the Carver County area. Her other services to her community include both paid and volunteer work at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and at a 12-step addiction-recovery center near her home in Chaska.

Amelious N. Whyte, a resident of Loring Park in Minneapolis, has pitched in with service to local AIDS victims, crisis nurseries, the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, and as fraternity adviser at the University of Minnesota, where he’s employed as an administrator of racial diversity initiatives.

Diane Younggren is a retired special education and home economics teacher from Hallock, up in the rural northwestern corner of Minnesota, the location where much of the “Fargo” movie was filmed. She’s an organist at her Presbyterian church, helps teach music to young folks, and volunteers for pretty much every event on the community calendar.

These are the kinds of neighbors we all value and trust, the folks who keep an eye on our property when we are out of town or send us a text when the dog gets loose. Monique, Amelious and Diane also are highly trained and seasoned volunteer election judges. And they are proud to be part of a Minnesota election system that they know to be both accessible and secure, despite an unprecedented wave of falsehoods alleging stolen elections, systemic fraud, and even threats and intimidation of election officials.

“We election judges can see first-hand the safety measures in every step of the voting process,” Monique says. “For instance, anytime where a voter needs help, there are two judges, one from each major party, and nobody is ever alone with the ballot.’’

Amelious says that although election judges who identify with both major parties are always present in the Minneapolis precincts he has worked, poll workers are not allowed to even talk about politics. And he has never seen anyone even suggest that rules and standards be relaxed for someone who wanted to vote if they couldn’t prove eligibility. “We turn down people all the time,” he adds.

Diane says election-result deniers would change their minds if they became judges themselves or if they could see “exactly how we make sure that everybody in the room is on board and knows what we’re doing. And ohmygosh, the cross-checking of things makes it nearly impossible to have anything but legitimate counting.”

All three of these model Minnesota citizens and about 30,000 more of our neighbors and friends will be there again for us on Nov. 5, working long hours for a modest stipend to provide us with one of the best election systems in the nation.

And, yes, this kind of claim can be scientifically measured. Minnesota typically ranks near the very top in voter turnout and other measures of civic engagement, but also among the top three states in presidential elections since 2008 on the Elections Performance Index, developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The MIT analysis measures security and efficiency, as well as openness and accessibility.

Key points to remember are that many honest people from both major parties are involved every step of the way, that numerous checks and balances and safeguards are in place, and that our own good neighbors are the most trusted sources of information.

Monique, Amelious and Diane agree that the best antidote to distrust and cynicism about our system is plunging in, volunteering locally as an election judge or simply learning as much as you can about exactly how the system works. We recommend the Safe and Secure Elections page of our organization’s website (cleanelectionsmn.org), and the Minnesota Elections Facts page of the secretary of state’s website (sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/how-elections-work).

One last thing. Figure out a way to observe Election Hero Day, set for the day before Election Day (electionheroday.org). It might not be appropriate to physically hug people like Monique, Amelious and Diane on Election Day, but a warm and heartfelt thanks to those good people behind the tables would be the right thing to do.

Mary Hartnett is executive director of Clean Elections Minnesota, a nonprofit group advocating for inclusive democracy and campaign finance reform. Dane Smith is a retired newspaper reporter and former think-tank executive, and a board member for Clean Elections Minnesota.