Minnesota fraud a ‘canary in the coal mine’ for election integrity concerns: RITE CEO
President of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections President Justin Riemer spoke to Fox News Digital about top voter security concerns ahead of the midterms.
EXCLUSIVE: Minnesota’s two largest counties are facing a new election integrity records probe targeting how officials verify voter eligibility, guard against potential noncitizen registrations and oversee the Election Day practice known as "vouching," Fox News Digital has learned.
Minnesota’s taxpayer-funded welfare fraud scandal has already put the Twin Cities under a national microscope. Now, watchdogs are increasingly scrutinizing other public-trust systems as well — including elections.
Justin Riemer, president and CEO of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), sent public-records requests Tuesday to the Hennepin and Ramsey County, Minnesota, elections offices. He asked for "any and all government data" from Jan. 1, 2024, to the present related to voter registration and list maintenance.
RITE is a conservative legal nonprofit that "supports litigation to stop a well-funded network of activists from using the courts to undermine elections and democracy."
Minnesota’s two largest counties are facing a new election integrity records probe. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
Riemer told Fox News Digital earlier in January that an anticipated probe into Minnesota's election processes was sparked by the current fraud case unfolding in the state and to ensure its election system has not suffered similar swindling to the state's welfare and social programs.
"What you've seen happen in Minnesota and now similar fraudulent schemes in other states, this should be very much a canary in the coal mine for other governmental processes," Riemer told Fox News Digital in a previous Zoom interview in January. "Which would include our voter registration and election processes. And it's not somehow immune to the type of corruption that we've seen in Minnesota and in other places."
The requests zero in on Minnesota's Hennepin and Ramsey counties’ voter-eligibility checks, noncitizen safeguards and the state’s "vouching" process.
Hennepin and Ramsey are Minnesota’s most populous counties and anchor the Minneapolis–St. Paul metro area. Minneapolis has been at the center of the state’s sweeping welfare fraud case, which has led to dozens of arrests, mostly from members of the state's large Somali population.
A voter arrives at a polling location to cast his ballot. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
In both letters, RITE laid out eight requests, including county-state communications about voter list-maintenance procedures referenced in Minnesota law and steps used to verify citizenship for certain registrations. The group also sought records involving registrants who were later ruled ineligible because they were noncitizens.
The formal requests were made under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, which is the state’s public-records law that lets people request most government documents and data, with limited privacy and security exceptions.
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One of the more detailed portions of the requests focuses on Minnesota’s "vouching" process, where a registered voter attests that another person lives in the precinct — a mechanism used in Election Day registration.
"All correspondence, records, or forms created, maintained, or received pursuant to Minnesota Rule § 8200.9940, including the ‘Precinct List of Persons Vouching,’ and any equivalent forms, lists, worksheets, or records used by election judges to record vouching activity at the precinct level," the letters both read.
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RITE asked the counties to respond electronically and to cite the legal basis for any denials or redactions. Fox News Digital reached out to both counties’ elections offices for comment.
RITE leaders also said they’re reviewing whether Minnesota’s automatic voter registration system effectively screens out noncitizens in practice. They’re also looking at whether ERIC — a multi-state data program used to help maintain accurate voter rolls — could generate outreach mailers that reach ineligible individuals. Another focus, they said, is whether information-sharing between the DMV and election officials breaks down in ways that affect voter-roll maintenance.
Riemer's letters come after House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., sent oversight letters to election officials in 10 states, including Minnesota, seeking details on voter roll maintenance and safeguards against noncitizen voting specifically.
Former Des Moines superintendent Ian Andre Roberts who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and federally charged. (Polk County, Iowa, Sheriff)
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Such concerns made national headlines when illegal immigrant Ian Roberts was found to be allegedly fraudulently registered to vote in Maryland. Roberts was arrested in 2025 while serving as a high-paid school superintendent in Iowa.
RITE was at the forefront of a successful effort to force a Maryland county to turn over unredacted voter registration documents showing Roberts fraudulently declared himself a U.S. citizen to register. The Maryland State Board of Elections previously said Roberts did not vote in elections.
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