Project Veritas founder dresses in ‘traditional Muslim attire’ in video attacking Minnesota election law

Right-wing political activist James O’Keefe, who stirred controversy in 2020 with allegations of fraud leveled against Minneapolis’s absentee voting process, was back in town last week in time for Minnesota’s primary election.

This time, the Project Veritas founder’s target was a more than 50-year-old Minnesota law that allows registered voters to vouch for prospective voters in the same precinct who might otherwise be unable to prove their residency.

A heavily edited hidden-camera video shows O’Keefe and associates costumed in what they say is “traditional Muslim attire,” including one dressed as “a transgender wearing a burqa,” visiting at least two precincts in southeast Minneapolis and speaking to poll workers in heavily accented English. 

In one clip, he gives a full name to a poll worker — apparently of an actual voter registered in the precinct — and asks if he can vouch for the people with him along with others he would “pick up” and bring back later. Another poll worker tells him, correctly, that he can vouch for up to eight precinct residents as long as he is eligible to vote in the precinct. Neither O’Keefe nor any of his associates appear to cast a ballot.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon put out a statement on Friday that blasted the video and suggested O’Keefe and his associates, whom he referred to as “members of a widely discredited Florida-based political group,” may be in legal hot water.

“Poll workers immediately reported these visits to local election officials and law enforcement is reviewing the situation … [w]e have zero tolerance for lying, lawbreaking, and disruptions at our polling places,” Simon said.

In an interview with MinnPost before Tuesday’s primary and O’Keefe’s video, Simon said vouching had long enjoyed broad bipartisan support in Minnesota. More recently, its opponents have settled on “a set of talking points” that are “just false,” he said.

Vouching accounted for fewer than 0.6% of votes cast in Minnesota in the 2024 general election, Simon’s office said in a background primer provided with his Friday statement. About 71% of “vouchees” were previously registered to vote and used the process to update their name or address in the voter file.

In an interview with MinnPost before Primary Day, Katie Smith, director of Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services, said vouching is rarer than other methods voters can use to register at polling places, such as providing a state ID card and proof of current address. 

Vouchees tend to be residents of nursing or other residential facilities, “where maybe someone doesn’t have an ID any longer, so someone who works there can vouch for them,” Smith said.

By law, the only people eligible to vouch for someone are voters registered in the same precinct as the person they are vouching for or employees of a residential facility in the same precinct. Both parties must attest under penalty of perjury that the person being vouched for lives in the precinct. And before the vouchee can register, they must provide valid proof of identity, which in Minnesota is typically the last four digits of a Social Security number or a full Minnesota driver’s license or state ID number.

City of Minneapolis spokesperson Jessica Olstad said in an email the city has multiple layers of safeguards to ensure election integrity, including requiring that “every voter takes an oath that they are eligible, absentee voters are prevented from voting more than once and database matches are run to ensure only eligible voters cast ballots.”

“Minneapolis follows all state and federal election laws to ensure everyone who is eligible to vote has access to our polling places — whether they speak a different language, forget to register to vote before Election Day or need accessibility assistance,” she said.

Olstad added that Minneapolis hires more election judges and trains them for more hours and on a wider scope of material than required by state law. In 2017, the city won a national award for its election worker recruitment, training and retention policies.

Smith said that “security planning” is a routine part of the work for Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services, encompassing everything from gas leaks to severe weather to efforts to interfere with voting on Election Day.

The post Project Veritas founder dresses in ‘traditional Muslim attire’ in video attacking Minnesota election law appeared first on MinnPost.