Update: As of February 7, 2024, the Caucusfinder tool of the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website has been updated. I had posted on another page the locations of what I had thought were St Paul Precinct Caucus locations for the Republican BPOUs and it was 2 yrs out of date. This was odd as Precinct Caucus locations were required to be turned into the state toward the end of January 2024. The MNGOP had required them by December 22, 2023. The redistricted districts and locations hadn’t been updated when I had checked on January 2nd. During the time period the website tool had been taken offline I would check and they listed the DFL locations but not the Marijuana Party nor the MNGOP caucus locations were listed. You may be reading this after the update, but why did it take 2 years for the MN SOS office to do updates? I’m not saying there was a concerted effort to not have the corrected information, but why is the state employing people who do sloppy work? ~~ Publius Jr.
A few weeks ago this note was not posted on the caucusfinder website.
In anticipation of the inevitable web traffic to find where Republicans will go for Precinct Caucuses on February 27, 2024, I, Publius Jr, decided to post the locations of only the Precinct Caucuses for Republicans living inside the City Limits of St Paul, Minnesota.
So instead of asking some leader in the Republican Party of Minnesota, as neither the MNGOP, nor the CD4 Republican websites ever have any useful information I decided to use the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Caucus Finder website.
caucusfinder.sos.state.mn.us
The Caucus Finder Website however requires addresses of residences in order to determine where the Precinct Caucuses that are secured by Local Party Units of the Major Parties in Minnesota.
The MNGOP calls these Local Party Units: BPOUs. They are separate party units from the State and Congressional District Party organizations. They sometimes work in concert with those other groups but they have separate Leaderships and Constitutions. I say this because each Local Party Unit has to go out and find a location for the precincts inside of their Local Party Unit’s borders. Usually it is a public school as by law public schools have to provide space for free for caucus. Conventions are a party function and therefore they usually have to rent space or utilize their non-profit status to get space free at a library.
Discovering the Glitch
As mentioned above The Caucusfinder website requires your address in order to help you find where your Precinct Caucus is to be found.
I have a number of addresses of current or former delegates in the several Local Party Units in St Paul. I inputted these addresses in the general areas of BPOUs I know in St Paul. I came across a problem around the border of HD 67A & HD 66B.
The Caucus Location of the HD 66B Republicans is Johnson High School. I put in an address just down the street from there that I know is in HD 67A, and it showed that their caucus location is also at Johnson High School!
How was that possible? Did they both book the same high school?
I decided to check other addresses in that precinct, which was St Paul Ward 6 Precinct 7. I went into the Ramsey County GIS Interactive Map which will show address numbers and streets. Other addresses in that precinct read Johnson High School. Now I didn’t check other Major Parties to see if there was a discrepancy, I was only interested in Republican Caucus Locations.
I checked another address further into HD 67A and this time it came up as Hazel Park Preparatory Academy off White Bear Avenue.
I then found the location of the caucus for HD 66A Republicans which is at the Roseville Middle School.
Then I found the SD 65 Republicans Caucus Location at Benjamin E Mays Magnet School.
Next I inputted an address near the University of St Thomas and it listed their caucus at Johnson High School!
How did that happen?
I tried another address near Davern St & St Paul Avenue and I found they are listed at the Ramsey Middle School. Well that’s a problem too as that school changed it’s name to Hidden River Middle School and I discovered it in 2022.
Hmm that’s interesting nothing has changed since February 2022 on the Caucusfinder when Redistricting Started. That was a clue to what the glitch was.
Redistricting Changed Everything in St Paul
The last Precinct Caucuses were held in February 2022. This was the year of Redistricting which meant that Congressional Districts, Minnesota Legislative Districts (MN House & Senate Districts) redrew their boundaries. This is a task of the State Legislature but in the last 30 years it has fallen to the State Supreme Court to redraw the lines which is actually not the duty of the MN Supreme Court and could be considered unconstitutional.
In St Paul, the Precinct & Ward boundaries changed too. Many Precincts grew their boundaries which meant less Precincts per Ward in some cases. This is mostly because there were many residents of St Paul fleeing the city due to high property taxes, high violent crime, and ridiculous ordinances. Most of the Wards however kept the same core precincts and the edges of the Wards changed, so if you live in mostly the center of your Ward much of the Redistricting inside Saint Paul did not affect you at all.
Looking at the Precincts in question Saint Paul Ward 6 Precinct 7 and Ward 4 Precinct 12 something is much different, and the name change of Ramsey Middle School are clues that something is amiss at the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office. It’s not a surprise, there’s a lot of examples of sloppy or incompetent work coming from the office going back to even the former Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s term. Mark Ritchie was Secretary of State Steve Simon’s predecessor.
Mystery Solved
In 2022 I, Publius Jr, was on the Ramsey County Elections (RCE) Absentee Ballot Board. I had been on it since September 2020 until last year when the St Paul & Ramsey County Municipal and School Board Elections did not garner even a quarter of the eligible voters who generally vote in State & Congressional Elections in the even years.
I remember a discussion with RCE Manager David Triplett about the name of Ramsey Middle School in the Highland Park neighborhood of Saint Paul. On the Polling Locations Page I had entered in all the polling locations of the redistricted precincts in St Paul. It was a lot of work putting in links to maps of the locations. One of them that came into question was the Ramsey Middle School listing David Triplett had sent me. The google map picture and the map said it was named Hidden River Middle School at 1700 Summit Avenue in Ward 4 Precinct 6. There were a few days to corroborate the name and then I was told the new name. That was before the 2022 election. It’s 2024 and on the CaucusFinder website during the first couple of days of 2024 it said Ramsey Middle School.
These 3 clues spelled out the fact the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office hadn’t changed the Caucusfinder to the Redistricted Boundaries that were learned after the caucuses in 2022!
What have they been doing for 2 years?
That’s a good question.
Action to Solve the Problem
But upon discovering this issue with the Caucusfinder, I contacted RCE Manager David Triplett, the Deputy Chair of MNGOP Donna Bergstrom, the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office, and to make sure something gets done, I sent a tip to Liz Collin at Alpha News MN. I knew RCE Manager Triplett didn’t have any way to correct the issue as it wasn’t within his jurisdiction, but I wanted him to know about it. He also said in his reply he would contact Steve Simon’s Office about the problem.
Deputy Chair Bergstrom said they would stress the Caucusfinder fix in their correspondence with the MN SOS offfice.
Liz Collin said she would forward the tip to the Alpha News political reporter.
I’ve yet to hear back from the MN Secretary of State’s Office but seeing the above note in the top photo saying CaucusFinder will be available after February 7, 2024 is a pseudo reply saying they will fix it. An email would have been nice.
Other Sloppy Work at MN SOS
I don’t hold any ill will toward the MN Secretary of State’s Office but I’m tired of the sloppy, or incompetent work going all the way back to before Steve Simon took office in 2015.
- Bad Links on “What’s On My Ballot?” & Candidate Filing Websites
- DFL Endorsed Matt Pelikan’s Website Link Went to Another Candidate
- MN SOS Maps with no Precinct Detail
- No MN State Legislature Law requiring the MN SOS to check on Residency of Candidates (Especially perennial candidate Sharon Anderson files for office in SD 64 when she lives in HD 67B)
There are other issues, but these come to mind that are chronic problems.
Bad Links on “What’s On My Ballot?” Tool
One of the great tools on the MN SOS website is called “What’s On My Ballot?” You input your address and it will give you a look at who the candidates are running in your Congressional District, Legislative District, County, City, Ward, or School Board. There will also be referendums you can look at and read. Too often referendums aren’t worded in an unbiased way (“vote this way or else” is the usual gist).
www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/whats-on-my-ballot
Too often the candidate links on this great tool are not entered correctly.
I always tell candidates to make sure your email and website are printed legibly on their application and to check to make sure their website link on the “What’s On My Ballot?” tool as well on the Candidate Filings Search websites have correct links because often they aren’t, or not posted at all.
candidates.sos.mn.gov (Candidate Filings Search)
I like to Beta test every link on an article I’ve just written and make sure every link goes somewhere I’ve intended.
DFL Endorsed Matt Pelikan’s Website Link Went to Another Candidate
Clicking on candidates on the Candidate Filings Search in 2018 I discovered something wrong. The Endorsed DFL Attorney General Candidate Matt Pelikan’s website went to a different DFL MN AG Candidate who was running in the August 2018 Primary. I had a dilemma. Pelikan wasn’t a Republican and I had no intention of voting for him so I did what integrity said, I sent him an email about this snafu and also an email to the Secretary of State’s office about it as well. I figured that if Doug Wardlow the Endorsed Republican MN AG Candidate had won or lost against the DFL Candidate I had wanted it to be fair.
I didn’t hear back from either Mr Pelikan, nor the MN Secretary of State’s office. I wonder if this snafu had any impact on Rep Keith Ellison winning in the Primary that year going on to become the MN AG in Minnesota (that race had some major questions about Ellison’s past and conduct with women).
MN SOS Maps with no Precinct Detail
You might say I’m a bit picky about maps. Though where would you be without your GPS, or the little map on your smartphone or computer? I was in the US Army and map reading was a skill that could determine life or death of myself or a spotted enemy. I took map reading seriously.
So I would imagine the MN SOS Office gets more money to run their department than the Ramsey County Elections Office, even though Ramsey County is the second largest county by voting density compared to Hennepin County to the west. Yet the MN SOS Legislative District Maps online (PDFs) have no Precinct Detail, or Precinct Boundaries on them, and RCE has GIS Interactive Maps. You can created custom GIS Maps for your purpose. Though I need to remind the RCE Map person to create PDFs with Legislative Districts with precinct detail as well as PDFs with Wards with Precinct Detail on them too. It’s a tall request but they’ve had 2 years to do it.
Fixing the MN Secretary of State’s Office
I mentioned the MN SOS having issues going back to the Secretary Mark Ritchie days. The chief one is that they are not required to check on the resident status of a candidate filing for office. The State Legislature has not codified this into law that governs the MN SOS Office. Any prudent Secretary would at least look into the validity of the claim of a candidate that they are a US Citizen, and whether they are current resident of the state. Voters can’t register to vote using a PO Box as an address but oddly candidates can list a PO Box for their application to file for office.
John Thompson who won in HD 67A to be the State Representative there was a legal resident of Wisconsin, and he also according to the campaign staff of John Stromenger, the Republican running against him said Thompson had outstanding warrants on him. You’d think if the MN SOS did a background check on him or validated his address they would have caught one of these issues.
Going back to Secretary Mark Ritchie’s term of office there is an ongoing issue of allowing a perennial candidate named Sharon Anderson to file as a Republican in SD 64. She doesn’t live there nor has in a very long time.
The SD 64 Republican Chair in 2020 had inquired of Secretary of State Steve Simon why Sharon Anderson is allowed to file for office in SD 64 as a Republican. She hasn’t been endorsed ever by the Republican Local Party Unit there. She lives in Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood of St Paul which is HD 67B. The response the chair received from the office is that they are not required to determine the resident status of the person filing for office. Secretary Mark Ritchie knew this too, but the State Legislature has not passed a law to require this check on the residence status of a candidate.
Ramsey County Elections (RCE) doesn’t require candidates to live in a district they are filing for either, at the time of filing. Their policy is the candidate has to have moved into the district they filed for 30 days before the General Election.
One has to wonder if RCE’s policy and the fact the MN SOS Office hadn’t changed the precinct numbers in St Paul may have messed up one candidate for Ramsey County Commission District 6 in 2022, Greg Copeland. He has lived in the same house since 1992 and when he filed for District 6 he had lived in St Paul Ward 6 Precinct 7 prior to redistricting. After Redistricting he was in the new Ward 6 Precinct 6. The County Commission District lines were redistricted and instead of District 6 he was now in District 3, yet he appeared on the District 6 Ballot at the time of the General Election.
I would like to see the MN Secretary of State’s Office be more serious about their job and to utilize their resources better. They do have some good tools to help people find their caucus (Caucusfinder), and their polling location (Pollfinder); CaucusFinder will not find your Polling location, nor will PollFinder find your Precinct Caucus location.
MN State Legislature, please require MN SOS to check on residency status.
Most Minnesota Voters do not spend a great deal of time thinking about some of the topics I’ve listed here, but trying to get elections to be fair and honest is a tall order. It’s irritating to do diligent work as a volunteer; I do not get paid to admin and write for this site, then run into Govt Union employees who get paid well and do sloppy incompetent work at the MN SOS Office. ~~ Publius Jr.