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Affirming Hennepin County’s commitment to ensuring free and fair elections
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WHEREAS, on July 2, 2026, Hennepin County submitted comments on the U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS’s) proposed rule: “Ballot Mail for Federal Elections” 39 CFR Part 111, Federal Register Document No. 2026-10968, which was prompted by President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order 14399, 91 Fed. Reg. 17125 (Mar. 31, 2026) titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Elections;” and in the comments to the proposed rule, the County opposed the USPS having a role in deciding whether election materials, including ballots, are delivered and asserted that the proposed rule exceeds USPS’s legal authority; and
WHEREAS, on August 2, 2026, Hennepin County, along with other local governments, and state and local election officials, joined in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in California v. Trump, No. 26A124, asking the Court to uphold the current injunction against Executive Order 14399, which among other provisions directed federal agencies to create and enforce an eligible voter list for each state; and directed the postal service to create regulations through which USPS may inspect and effectively impose its own determination of the validity of mail-in ballots; and
WHEREAS, in early August, the Office of Civil Rights from the United States Department of Justice “(DOJ”) requested that Hennepin County Elections staff approve DOJ staff access to polling places in Hennepin County for monitoring the primary election on August 11, 2026; and
WHEREAS, on August 7, 2026, Hennepin County informed the DOJ that it would not approve access to polling places for monitoring and that any DOJ staff performing monitoring needed to do so from beyond 100 feet in compliance with Minnesota law; and
WHEREAS, on August 11, 2026, DOJ monitors were present at polling places across Hennepin County and on several occasions had to be asked to move away from polling...
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