Conservative influencers charged with voter fraud in Minnesota primary

Hennepin County prosecutors on Wednesday said they charged conservative provocateur James O’Keefe and another man with felonies for unlawful voting and identity theft for filming themselves misrepresenting their identities to election judges during the Minnesota Aug. 11 primary.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said they were alerted by the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office that James O'Keefe, Cameron Higby and others were trying to undermine the state's vouching system.

Videos posted by O'Keefe’s operation show them wearing burkas outside precincts during the primary. Moriarty said the voter names they used included some residents who were dead and at least one who voted.

In the videos, O’Keefe, using an accent, asks workers at polling places if he can vouch for other voters. The election workers explain the law around vouching as one of his team members films and then his team walks out.

"Alright guys, it’s Election Day in Minneapolis. James O’Keefe and I are going to go around the city to different polling stations and we're going to see if they're going to allow us to vote without IDs and then we're going to see if they are going to allow us to vouch for other people who aren't even registered to vote,” Higby said in the video posted to YouTube.

Secretary of State Steve Simon later said the poll workers did exactly what they were supposed to do to protect the integrity of the election.

“I think it’s pretty clear they did not intend to vote. That’s not the question here,” Moriarty said Wednesday as she unveiled the charges against O’Keefe and Higby.

While neither man signed the oath to vouch for the other would-be voter — an act Moriarty said would have been felony perjury — “you cannot give somebody else’s name and misrepresent yourself as you go through the process.”

An initial court appearance for O’Keefe and Higby has been set for Nov. 16.

The state has several ways for unregistered voters to register on Election Day, including vouching. To vouch for someone, a voter who is already registered in the precinct goes with an unregistered voter to the voting precinct and signs an oath confirming the unregistered voter’s address. Under state law, a registered voter can vouch for up to eight people.

In a press release in August, O’Keefe’s group, which calls itself the “Justice League,” said the people in the video “did not cast ballots. The investigation was intended to test the limits of Minnesota’s vouching law and document how election workers apply it on Election Day.”

O’Keefe is known for making undercover videos. His videos have led to criminal charges against him in the past and he was caught by Washington Post reporters in 2017 for attempting to sell them on a false story.

“It is not against the law to be performative. It is not against the law to be offensive,” Moriarty told reporters. But “you cannot go into a polling place and misidentify yourself and use someone’s identity and say that to our election judges as you apply for a ballot.”

In a statement after the charges were announced Wednesday, Simon said “Minnesota’s enduring tradition of high voter turnout and excellence in elections administration is due in part to the work we all do to keep polling places as ‘islands of calm.’ ”

“Any attempt to disrupt or deceive our election workers will not be tolerated. We are grateful to our law enforcement partners for holding these individuals to account,” Simon said.

MPR News reporter Peter Cox contributed to this story.

Use the audio player above to hear MPR News reporter Jon Collins explain this story on Minnesota Now.

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