Minnesota Secretary of State, Steve Simon made a stop in Crookston Wednesday morning to meet with Polk County Auditor-Treasurer Michelle Cote. Simon is visiting all the counties to discuss the 2018 election. “I go to all 87 Minnesota counties every year. I think it’s important as far as the office,” said Simon. “This meeting was an elections-based meeting which is kind of the bread and butter of the office and I wanted to talk about two things election security and make sure we are all on the same page and it is the number one threat of our election. We have to stay one step in front of the bad guys all the time and that takes a lot of thought, focus, and money.”
Since taking office, Secretary Simon has devoted significant resources toward upgrading the security of our systems and putting new security measures in place. He created a cybersecurity team, hired an outside consultant to test office vulnerabilities, and worked with partners in other agencies (including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) to minimize the chance of any intrusion. Minnesota was one of 21 states targeted by the foreign government and wasn’t affected, but Arizona and Illinois were compromised. “I think the 2016 election, nationally, was a good wake up call and the good news is we have great partners with the Federal intelligence communities, Department of Homeland Security and they have come to our office and have done two weeks of testing,” said Simon. “We are in a different place than we were two years ago, and we are ready for the threat and minimized the risk.”
The 2016 election is the reason Simon sought an additional $1.5 million from the legislature to ensure that the Secretary of State’s Office has the tools it needs to keep the system secure. The United States Election Assistance Commission allocated nearly $7 million to Minnesota as a result of the federal omnibus appropriation signed into law in March and the state is preparing for the 2018 and 2020 elections. “In 2016, the legislature said from now on in presidential elections, instead of caucuses, we will use real election judges, but that takes a lot of planning and counties will have to do three large elections every four years and we need to plan for that and make sure we put on a solid election in 2020.”
Polk County Auditor-Treasurer Michelle Cote said Polk County has 82 precincts and 35 percent of the county voters are mail-in while 65 percent of the precincts are mail-in and she always appreciates when the Secretary of State makes a stop at her office. “Today he brought forth concerns about federal dollars Minnesota has received for cybersecurity and he is looking for local input for cybersecurity funds,” said Cote. “I think the level of security needed is at the forefront and the dollars need to be spent on the backside.”
One of the main topics of discussion/concern was the 2020 election. “We talked a lot about the Presidential Primary that is coming up in March of 2020 and how will that affect the voters with all our mail ballots,” said Cote. “He did lay out a couple options the state is looking at for combined polling places or a total mail election. Both of those merit further discussion.”
As Polk County prepares for the 2018 primary and general election they have been working hard testing equipment. “We are finishing the testing of the tabulators and our poll pads. The mail ballots went out about 10 days ago and they are streaming back in. We cannot start tabulating them and cannot start feeding them into a machine seven days prior to the election,” said Cote. “As soon as the window shuts on the primary election we start working on our general election.”
Cote said the general filing for the cities, November townships and school districts opens on July 31.
