The race for Minnesota’s Secretary of State continues to be a tight battle, as most polls show both incumbent Democrat Steve Simon and Republican challenger Kim Crockett neck-and-neck.
The pair have debated several times, including on WCCO Radio with moderator Blois Olson in early October.
The biggest issue, since it’s the most visible of the office’s duties, is the security and integrity of Minnesota’s elections.
“When people become acquainted—or reacquainted—with the system as it really is, as it really factually exists, and not how it so often has been characterized by national political figures or in their Facebook feeds, they come away with a ton more confidence,” said Simon during the debate.
But Crockett and others continue to insist that the 2020 election was fraught with issues about security, and she takes issue both with how absentee ballots are collected and certified—saying there should be bi-partisan representation on those panels responsible—and how long Minnesota allows for early and absentee voting.
“I think the legislature should debate that next year so we can accommodate voters, but not for six weeks,” she said.
Simon continues to say the elections in Minnesota, while not completely free of voter fraud, are secure and legitimate.
“We can debate, and we should, today and otherwise, all day long about what the election process should look like—what we should subtract, what we should add,” said Simon. “But if we cannot as a country any longer come to some consensus about the truth about the facts and evidence about what the system is, how it really operates, then we’re really in trouble.”
Crockett continued the drumbeat of more transparency and tighter voter registration laws, calling for photo IDs to be mandatory when voting.
“The United States just has gotten more and more about convenience and less and less about security,” said Crockett.