What the FBI’s raid of the Fulton County, Georgia election office could mean for Minnesota

This past week the FBI carried out a search warrant at the Georgia Fulton County Election Hub and Operations Center with the intention of taking records related to the 2020 presidential election. 

The search was connected to President Donald Trump’s previously debunked claims of widespread voter fraud in counties he lost to former President Joe Biden. 

On the same day that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Gov. Tim Walz demanding access to Minnesota’s voter rolls as a condition to remove ICE agents from the state. 

Voter rolls include personal information that goes beyond what is publicly available about a voter such as their name, address and voting history. A part of what the Trump Administration is seeking to attain from voter rolls is private data including the last digits of social security numbers and drivers license numbers. 

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon characterized Bondi’s letter as a ransom note. 

“Her letter is an outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of U.S. Citizens in violation of state and federal law.” Simon said in a statement. “This comes after repeated and failed attempts by the DOJ to pressure my office into providing the same data.

“Minnesota’s elections are fair, accurate, honest, and secure. Every step of the way they are organized by local officials – Minnesotans who do honest, hard work to ensure their neighbors, friends, and family have access to a secure ballot.”

Simon is the past president of the National Association of Secretaries of State. State secretaries are in charge of voting for their particular state. 

Fulton County Commissioner Dana Barrett said in a video taken at the site of the FBI raid that the seizure was “political theater at its best” and that the administration was distracting “from the ICE killings in Minnesota.”

Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota

Larry Jacobs, the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota says the state should stand prepared for the possibility of similar federal raids of county election offices, but says Minnesota isn’t as high a priority for the administration as other places in the country that had a steeper impact on Trump’s loss in 2020. 

“This is very much part of a general campaign (of the administration). Georgia may be getting more attention because it was a decisive state in 2020,” said Jacobs. “I think they (counties in Minnesota) should certainly be prepared, but I don't think it's going to be at the top of the Trump administration agenda. Minnesota has reliably voted Democrat in the presidential elections since 1972.”