Feds leave Minnesota to fend for itself on election security

MINNEAPOLIS - By this point in a typical election year, federal intelligence officials would have briefed Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and other election officials on emerging threats to the November election.

Simon would have joined federal agencies in rehearsing responses to worst-case scenarios, from foreign cyberattacks and bomb threats to severe weather on Election Day.

Instead, with four months until voters head to the polls, Simon said those briefings and trainings never happened. Now, some of the worst-case scenarios election officials are preparing for involve the Trump administration.

"The federal government itself is now the potential obstacle - or even the instigator," Simon said. "That's what's different this time."

Simon said election officials are now considering scenarios ranging from a last-minute executive order affecting election administration to a federal law enforcement action at a local election office - something that happened earlier this year in Georgia's Fulton County. As he travels the state, Simon also increasingly hears voters ask whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents could show up at polling places.

The shift reflects a broader change under the second Trump administration. Federal agencies have retreated from their longstanding role helping states safeguard elections while taking a more aggressive posture toward state election officials, particularly over allegations of voter fraud.

The Justice Department is suing Minnesota after demanding the state's complete, unredacted voter rolls. State officials refused, arguing state and federal law prohibit releasing protected voter information, including driver's license numbers, full birth dates and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. Officials are also threatening to prosecute election officials across the country, including Simon, if they don't remove noncitizens from their voting rolls.

The dispute has also made Simon an increasingly prominent target for Minnesota Republicans as the DFLer runs for a fourth term in office.

Earlier this year, the state's Republican congressional delegation introduced legislation that would require Minnesota to turn over its voter registration data to the federal government.

"Minnesotans deserve to know their elections are fair, accurate and secure," U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber said in a statement.

Stauber said the Justice Department requested the data to verify the integrity of the state's voter rolls and argued that if Minnesota wants to continue partnering with the federal government, "they need to get serious about election security."

Outside of the voter rolls dispute, Simon said the last substantive contact his office had with federal election-security officials came in February. During a conference call with other secretaries of state, he said representatives from several federal agencies read prepared statements assuring election officials they were monitoring threats and that elections remained secure.

"That was it," Simon said.

Bill Ekblad, the state's election security navigator, said the threat environment has become "highly intense" since he started on the job in 2019. Election officials have faced direct threats at their homes, bomb threats targeting local election offices and suspicious white powder mailed to the Secretary of State's Office in 2024 that was later determined to be harmless.

"We remain on high alert and are making every possible effort to ensure that our systems remain secure," Ekblad said.

Minnesota has moved to fill some of the gaps itself, hiring outside cybersecurity experts and conducting its own exercises to test their systems. But one resource the state can't replicate is the classified threat intelligence federal agencies once routinely shared.

That information-sharing network expanded in Trump's first term after Russia's attempts to interfere in the 2016 election - actions that reached Minnesota. The federal government designated the nation's election systems as critical infrastructure. Simon said the federal government now appears to view election security as more of a state responsibility.

"During the first Trump administration, we had a healthy, robust partnership," Simon said. "We certainly had policy disagreements, but they were reliable partners. They provided valuable services not just to Minnesota, but to election officials across the country.

"For whatever reason, under this second Trump administration, that partnership has disappeared."

A Department of Justice spokesperson said in a statement that they are "committed to helping states comply with their obligations under federal law and ensuring elections are administered in accordance with those requirements."

"Our enforcement actions are intended to promote compliance with federal law and are one of several tools the department uses to uphold the integrity of our nation's elections."

David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former DOJ employee, said the shift is a "huge sea change in how elections are run in this country."

"It puts an enormous burden, financial and otherwise, on the states," Becker said. "Not only to do this all on their own, and re-create these networks of support, but also to prepare for interference from the federal government."

Simon expressed concerns over recent reporting that showed Justice Department officials urging U.S. attorneys to "get creative" in bringing voter-related cases.

"If there's a factual basis for prosecuting an alleged crime, of course those cases should be pursued," Simon said. "But if the message is to pursue politically motivated cases regardless of the facts, that's a serious concern."

Minnesota Republicans argue the Justice Department's scrutiny is warranted. They have pressed Simon's office to release the state's full voter registration database to help investigate allegations of noncitizen voting and voter registration fraud.

State Rep. Duane Quam, R-Byron, co-chair of the House elections committee, pointed to a case last summer in which a couple was charged with conspiring to submit hundreds of fraudulent voter registration applications between 2021 and 2022.

"If I was in the DOJ, and (seeing) the lack of cooperation, I would wonder what they are hiding, because they see that there are issues across multiple counties, proven in court," Quam said. "Why doesn't the Secretary of State of Minnesota wish to cooperate to fix the issues to help convict the people behind the voter fraud?"

The Secretary of State's Office has said no fraudulent ballots were cast in the counties where the applications were submitted, and it worked with the FBI and local election officials during the investigation.

Noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare in Minnesota. A 2024 University of St. Thomas study found three noncitizens were convicted of voting illegally in Minnesota over nine years and more than 13 million votes cast.

Simon said people he talks to are more concerned about federal immigration agents returning to the state to do enforcement actions at polling places.

Minnesota law strictly limits who may come within 100 feet of a polling place, and Simon notes voters concerned about potential confrontations can always cast ballots by mail.

"The fact that people are asking at all underscores how the federal government has gone from being viewed as a partner to being seen as a possible impediment," he said. "That's quite a shift."

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This story was originally published July 9, 2026 at 3:13 AM.