Minnesota allowed nearly 19,000 people to register to vote or update their registrations on Election Day 2024 using a system called “vouching,” where another person confirms a voter’s address in lieu of standard proof of residence. That is the finding from records obtained by America First Legal from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office.
The total figure is 18,898. Of those, 5,457 were brand-new Election Day registrations, and 13,441 were updates to existing registrations. Both categories relied on vouching rather than conventional documentation to verify that the voter lived at the address claimed.
Perhaps more striking than the number itself is what the state says it does not know. AFL requested breakdowns by vouching method, residential facility totals, certified lists of facility employees authorized to vouch, and any reports of suspicious or unlawful vouching activity. Minnesota’s response: it either does not record that data or has no responsive records.
America First Legal released the records it obtained and provided the year-over-year context:
AFL says the records show 18,898 Election Day registrations or registration updates using vouching in 2024, up from 10,278 in the 2022 midterms and 17,616 in the 2020 presidential election. The 2024 figure includes 13,441 updates to existing registrations and 5,457 new vouched-for registrations. In 2020, the breakdown was 12,547 updates and 5,069 new registrations. In 2022, it was 8,063 updates and 2,215 new registrations.
The records fight did not stop at the topline number. AFL says it requested data that would distinguish between general registered-voter vouching and residential-facility staff vouching, along with facility-specific totals, certified lists of authorized facility employees, and reports of suspicious or unlawful vouching-related activity. The state response, as AFL described it, was that Minnesota either does not maintain the vouching-method data or had no responsive records for many of the categories that would make the system auditable after Election Day.
To be clear, none of this proves that a single fraudulent vote was cast through vouching. What it does show is that a state processing nearly 19,000 vouched registrations or updates in one election cannot tell the public how those vouches broke down, who authorized them at residential facilities, or whether any red flags were ever raised. That is not evidence of fraud. It is evidence of a system that would have no idea if fraud occurred.
Alpha News provided additional local context, including the state’s defense of the system:
Under Minnesota law, a person seeking same-day registration can have a registered voter from the same precinct sign an oath confirming the person’s address. A registered voter may vouch for up to eight people. Staff at residential facilities, however, are not bound by that eight-person limit and can vouch for all eligible voters living in the facility. The Minnesota Secretary of State’s office defended the practice, telling Alpha News that vouching has been part of state law for more than 50 years. The office said vouching accounted for less than 0.6% of all votes cast in the 2024 general election. It also emphasized that vouching is used only to confirm a voter’s residence in the precinct, while the voter must still provide a Minnesota driver’s license or ID card number, or the last four digits of a Social Security number, for identity verification. The office added that vouchers sign oaths under penalty of perjury and that any discrepancies must be referred to local law enforcement.
The state’s 0.6% figure is technically accurate but somewhat beside the point. The concern is not whether vouching is common across all voters. The concern is whether the state can verify the integrity of the nearly 19,000 transactions that did use it. Based on the records AFL received, the answer appears to be no.
The Minnesota Secretary of State page on Election Day registration lays out how vouching works:
The state’s Election Day registration guidance lists several ways a voter can prove residence at the polling place, and one of them is vouching. A registered voter from the same precinct may sign an oath confirming the person’s address. That voter may vouch for up to eight voters, and someone who was vouched for cannot then turn around and vouch for another person. The guidance also creates a separate route for residential facilities. A staff person can confirm the address of eligible voters living in the facility, and that staff member may vouch for all eligible voters who live there after proving employment at the facility.
That means the state itself publicly acknowledges two different vouching paths: ordinary same-precinct voter vouching and residential-facility staff vouching. That distinction is exactly why the missing breakdowns matter. Without those records, the public can see the total number of vouched registrations and updates, but not how the process was actually used.
The residential-facility carve-out is one of the sharpest parts of the story. A single staff member at a nursing home, group home, or similar facility can vouch for every eligible voter in the building. There is no cap. And as AFL’s records request revealed, the state does not maintain certified lists of which employees are authorized to do it. There is no publicly available data showing which facilities used vouching or how many residents were vouched for at each one.
Minnesota is one of 21 states that allow same-day voter registration. Vouching is the mechanism that makes same-day registration work when a person does not have a utility bill, bank statement, or other qualifying document on hand. The policy question is not whether the system exists. It is whether the state has built any infrastructure to audit it after the fact.
Based on the records AFL obtained, the answer is that the state tracks the total number of vouched registrations and updates but not the details behind them. No breakdown by method. No facility-level data. No reports of suspicious activity. That means the only real safeguard is the oath signed by the voucher, which carries a perjury penalty that is only meaningful if someone investigates.
With 2026 midterms approaching and Minnesota once again expected to be competitive in key races, 18,898 is not a rounding error. It is a volume of election activity that should come with the same level of documentation and transparency the state applies everywhere else in its system. If the vouching process is as clean as the Secretary of State’s office says it is, proving it should be easy. The fact that the state cannot produce the data to do so is the real story.
https://100percentfedup.com/nearly-19000-minnesota-voters-used-vouching-election-day/
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