This summer, we met with Minnesota’s Secretary of State Steve Simon to discuss Minnesota topping the list of MIT’s Elections Performance Index. But Simon, Minnesota’s 22nd Secretary of State, is focused on the future: November 2026 specifically.
Watch our interview
The MIT Ranking: A Team Effort Across 87 Counties
The MIT Elections Performance Index assess each state on 20 indicators, including voter turnout, accessibility for voters with disabilities and overseas military personnel, data transparency, and post-election audits.
“This is a real brag point for us. This is a big deal,” Simon said. “I was shaking my fist one year at North Dakota and I was shaking my fist one year at Vermont, but we caught them.”
Simon credited and highlighted Minnesota’s 87 county election offices, noting that his office does not count votes. Rather it is a decentralized process led by trained election judges and county officials.
“All of us who touch this work are in the democracy business and they are our business partners,” he said. “We are partners. We are teammates in doing this.”
The Plan for November 2026
Simon has directed his office to take “all hazards approach” for this November. The includes preparing for power outages, bomb threats, and the possibility that the Trump administration will interfere in Minnesota’s election – either directly or indirectly.
“That is not a prediction on my part, but it is a precaution we need to take,” Simon said. “Even if there’s a low probability […] we still have to plan for those.”
Simon shared with his that the number one concern Minnesotans share with him is whether or not Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will show up at polling places. While he thinks it unlikely—given the tragedies of Operation Metro Surge—he pointed to legal protections currently on the books to prevent it. Minnesota law prohibits any law enforcement officer from all polling stations. This restriction applies to all federal agents.
“We have tools in the toolbox to make sure that whether it’s ICE or anyone else, they can’t just be loitering and hanging out by the polling places,” Simon said.
Secure Elections by Design
Minnesota’s success on the MIT index, Simon explained, is founded on two basic principles: making voting accessible and keeping it secure.
“If you’re designing any election system, I think you’re looking at two things. You’re always looking at the blend or balance of two things. You want access and security,” Simon said. “We’re always chasing that perfect blend.”
That philosophy extends to voter registration itself. Simon demystified the concept, reducing it to its essentials: “Voter registration just means two simple things. You have to show you are who you say you are and you live where you say you live. That’s it. That’s the whole ballgame.”
Minnesota uses a broad range of documents to prove a voter’s identity and their residency. Not just state-issued ID because not every Minnesotan has current government identification.
To further aid voter registration, in 2023, Minnesota joined approximately two dozen states to implement automatic voter registration.
“We see automatic voter registration as the legislature did when it passed it as really a win-win. It enhances accessibility, but it also enhances security,” he said. “It makes our voter rolls more up to date, more accurate, more secure than otherwise because we’re constantly getting refreshed and new data.”
Citizens are automatically registered to vote when they obtain or renew a driver’s license or state ID—if they provide what Simon called “citizenship-affirming documentation.” This includes passports or naturalization records.
A companion law allows 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote. Once they verify their identity and residency with local election officials, they are automatically registered at midnight on their 18th birthday.
A Mandatory Investigation Law
When opponents raise complaints about election fraud, either in Minnesota or elsewhere, Simon pointed out that Minnesota has refined their election security, specifically when it comes to issuing driver’s licenses. Now two sets of eyes, not just one, verifies citizenship documentation.
Common mistakes could be a blurry scan of a document or a foreign birth certificate mistaken for an American one. But with two sets of eyes this minimizes errors.
Beyond this, Minnesota has an aggressive elections security law which requires that county attorneys must investigate credible allegations of election misconduct.
“Not only must it be referred to our county attorneys or county prosecutors, but those county attorneys must investigate it. They must,” Simon said. “We don’t even have that kind of requirement for certain violent crimes in Minnesota, but we do for election-related crimes.”
Fighting the Department of Justice
No stranger to a fight, Simon battled the U.S. Department of Justice this past winter during Operation Metro Surge when U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a proposal to end the federal action. She demanded Minnesota hand over to the Department of Justice millions of private voter records—social security information, driver’s license data, military record.
Her proposal, which critics characterized as a ransom note, came hours after an ICE agent shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Simon’s response was unequivocal.
“The answer is no. And the reason that it’s no has nothing to do with likes or dislikes or policy preferences. It has to do with the law,” Simon said. “Our position starts and ends with the law.”
DOJ has received a flat no from 32 states, including Minnesota, to their request for voter records. DOJ took the matter to federal court where they have lost every case.
“The Justice Department is 0 and eight on motions to dismiss,” Simon said.
Simon noted that despite the series of losses, DOJ continues to act suspiciously, like when the FBI raided the elections office in Fulton County, Georgia. Moreover, the New York Times reported on about a conference call in which a Justice Department official urged U.S. attorneys to pursue election-related indictments and to “be creative” about it.
“It’s not normal and it’s not healthy to have someone from main justice prodding and pressuring local federal prosecutors to bring certain categories of cases,” Simon said. “Facts be damned.”
A Message for the LGBTQ Community
When asked about the stakes for LGBTQ voters this coming November, Simon said elections are both civic duty and strategic self-interest.
“People in communities that vote tend to get more attention. And when you tend to get more attention, you tend to get more of the stuff that you want,” he said. “I will say in Minnesota … the LGBTQ+ community has been outstanding in galvanizing voting power, in voting as a community.”
Simon pointed to the 2012 campaign against Minnesota’s proposed anti-marriage amendment—the first time a state voted “no” on such a measure after more than 30 states had voted “yes”—as proof of what organized electoral power can achieve.
“We were the first state in the country after 30 some states to vote no instead of yes,” Simon said. “That was an extraordinary achievement brought to us by many, many people around the state, not just the LGBTQ+ community, but allies as well.”
With fewer than 100 days until the midterms, Simon urges voters to engage now.
Minnesota’s mnvotes.gov website offers not only all the options on how to register to vote, but also a comprehensive ballot tool. Voters can look up their polling place and generate a sample ballot that shows all contests and candidates in their area.
“Nobody’s going to get where they want to go on any issue unless they get people into office who share their views and values,” Simon said. “Voting is at the very top of the list.”
