Minnesota’s secretary of state issued an apology after several voters looking up their polling station were sent to a website that had endorsed Elizabeth Warren.
On Super Tuesday, several Minnesotans were directed to a poll-finder tool housed on the website for Bold Progressives, a liberal group that has endorsed Warren for president, as well as reelection endorsements for other candidates such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Voters who used Google to navigate to the state government’s website, which had its own poll-finder tool functioning earlier in the day, were directed to the partisan website before going to cast their votes. The website included a banner that read: “Vote for bold progressive candidates on election day.”
Here is a video showing how some users were being redirected after trying to look up their polling place on the Minnesota Secretary of State website. Full story on https://t.co/SYzFePv1aW pic.twitter.com/NeHXJzHV9f
— Torey Van Oot (@toreyvanoot) March 3, 2020
Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, apologized for the situation later in the day Tuesday. He claimed that the state website’s poll-finder failed that morning. The staff was supposed to have the poll finder page redirect to the nonpartisan tool maintained by Google, but instead, the partisan page was used as the redirect site.
“As many are now aware, our online poll-finder was inaccessible for a period of time earlier today,” Simon said in a statement. “We have now restored service to that tool. We have no evidence that Minnesota’s voting systems were hacked or otherwise interfered with in any way.”
He later added, “In an urgent attempt to restore service, a staff person diverged from our emergency plan and, in a serious lapse of judgment, linked to a partisan website that contained polling place information. The moment the error was discovered, we corrected the link.”
New statement from SOS @MNSteveSimon on the polling place locator redirect issues. Says the link was active for 17 minutes. Also: he won’t testify at #mnleg this afternoon pic.twitter.com/fiwwcqzKv2
— Torey Van Oot (@toreyvanoot) March 3, 2020
Simon said the incorrect link on the state website was live for 17 minutes. He added that he places the “highest possible value” on nonpartisanship and added that he “deeply regrets” the incident.
State Rep. Jim Nash, the top Republican on the House Subcommittee on Elections, told the Star Tribune, “Redirecting Minnesota voters to a partisan organization that endorses candidates and collects voter information shows an astonishing lack of judgment by the Secretary of State’s office.”
He added, “While I appreciate the preparations Secretary Simon has made to ensure voters can find their polling place in the event the state website is overloaded, this organization is an inappropriate source for our elections office to be utilizing.”
Minnesota is one of more than a dozen states holding primary elections on Tuesday. The state’s senator, Amy Klobuchar, dropped out of the presidential race on Monday and endorsed Joe Biden.
Simon has been secretary of state since 2015.
