News Room

SAINT PAUL – On February 2, 2026, Congressman Pete Stauber, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, Congresswoman Michelle Fischbach, and Congressman Brad Finstad introduced the Minnesota Voter Integrity Act of 2026 in the U.S. House of Representatives.  

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon made the following statement: 

“The proposed legislation is an irresponsible stunt. It would actively damage the security of our elections by threatening to starve Minnesota of critical federal funds that help protect our election infrastructure from harm or attack.
 
The legislation seeks to withhold federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds from Minnesota unless our office surrenders to the Department of Justice (DOJ) personal and private information on millions of Minnesota voters – in violation of state and federal law. This comes only days after Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote a similar letter, which I called a ransom note, suggesting disclosure of the very same personal and private voter data to the DOJ as a condition of drawing down ICE and Border Patrol personnel in Minnesota.  

HAVA funding is an important part of keeping our elections secure and should never be used as a political bargaining chip. The funding is used to protect our digital infrastructure generally and our statewide voter registration system in particular, and is used to support the townships, cities, and counties that administer our elections, and to harden their defenses against security breaches.  

Let’s remember how the DOJ quest for sensitive personal voter data started. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice made an unprecedented demand for access to the most sensitive data in Minnesota’s voter registration database. More than forty states have received a similar demand. While our office was cooperative in providing extensive details on the rigorous security measures built into the system, and in offering the publicly available version of the requested data – we were told this was not enough.  

Repeatedly, our office asked for information explaining why the federal government needed this sensitive information and how it would be used, stored, and shared. We received no direct response. Consistent with the law, we declined to turn over the data. Minnesota is one of thirty-two states that have rebuffed the DOJ demand. As a result, the dispute is now in federal court.  

In none of the thirty-two states that have declined to share sensitive data with the DOJ have members of Congress threatened to starve their own state of election security resources because they disagree with the legal position of the Secretary of State in a lawsuit."