Top Minnesota election official says Trump is attempting ‘unlawful’ power grab

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon says it’s an overreach — but unlikely to succeed at ceding power from the states.

“Our Constitution is pretty clear. The states control the time, place and manner of elections, including federal elections,” Simon told MPR News host Tom Crann on All Things Considered.

The new order would also require all mail-in ballots to be received and counted by election day. Simon said that’s already standard practice in Minnesota, but for other states it might prove to be a problem.

Trump said the new rules are about election integrity. Simon said it’s more complicated than that.

Turn Up Your Support

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.

“One state that tried [requiring ID to vote] on its own was the state of Kansas. The current Secretary of State of Kansas,” Simon added, “Has said, loudly and publicly, that was, in essence, a disaster.”

To listen to the conversation with Simon, click the player above. Below is a transcript edited for clarity and length.

What was your reaction to this new executive order when you heard about it and read it?

It was pretty surprising, and I would say it’s more like an unlawful attempt at a power grab. I think it will ultimately be unsuccessful, but we have to take it seriously.

Our Constitution is pretty clear: The states control the time, place and manner of elections, including federal elections, and this would up end that. It also seems to attempt to override or undo federal and state laws, and that's not what executive orders do.

What are other state and national election leaders saying?

We’re in rough agreement that this is overreach, that it is likely to be struck down in large part by the courts, because presidents can't simply do what this attempts to do. Which is to sort of intercept certain federal money and start attaching a bunch of new conditions to it.

If Congress wants to appropriate certain money to us for any purpose, that's absolutely fine, but presidents can’t, after the fact, start adding new provision, new request, new demands.

So, this executive order does not have the force of law, but it does have as penalty withholding of federal money for elections?

That’s right. And what we're trying to figure out is what money exactly the president is referring to.

We do have money that's already been appropriated that we don’t think they can claw that back. There’s very little money in the pipeline from the federal government. So, it’s unclear what that means. But I have to say, the idea of that kind of threat is a bad one, and it sets a really dangerous precedent.

How is this order at odds with Minnesota law?

This executive order purports to impose upon the states, to some degree, a requirement that anyone registering to vote provide documentary evidence— in other words, papers.

Very few states have tried that. One state that tried that on its own was the state of Kansas. The current Secretary of State of Kansas, who's a conservative guy — I know, he's a friend of mine — has said loudly and publicly that that was, in essence, a disaster. 26,000 eligible, legal Kansas voters were shut out of voting because of their documentary citizenship requirement.

Now, to be clear, nobody wants non-citizens voting in our elections. Fortunately, in Minnesota, we have almost none. And so I just think we have to keep that in perspective.

In terms of the practicality of all of this, we have 69 million women in America— I saw that number reported— who don't have the same last name now as they did at birth, which means that for the many millions of those who don't have, for example, a passport, the way that they would show citizenship, presumably, is they need both a birth certificate and some sort of marriage record. That seems like making our election system more of an obstacle course, and I think it would have the effect of shutting a lot of people out of the system.

What’s the remedy here?

I think the clearest, most direct remedy would be a lawsuit by one or more states seeking to pare back this executive order to the extent it oversteps the line.

I think it substantially oversteps the line, but it would take that. Stay tuned, we're evaluating our legal options, but I think it's very safe bet that someone, somewhere quite soon, is going to sue to roll back a lot of this.