Hennepin County prosecutors said Wednesday they have charged conservative firebrand James O’Keefe and another man with felonies for illegal voting and identity theft for filming themselves misrepresenting their identities to election judges during Minnesota’s Aug. 11 primary.
Hennepin County Prosecutor Mary Moriarty said she was alerted by the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office that James O’Keefe, Cameron Higby and others were trying to undermine the state’s bond system.
Videos released by O’Keefe’s operation show them wearing burqas outside precincts during the primary. Moriarty said the voter names they used included some deceased residents and at least one who had voted.
In the videos, O’Keefe, using an accent, asks poll workers if he can vouch for other voters. Election workers explain the law regarding vouching while one of their crew members films, then their crew leaves.
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“Alright guys, it’s election day in Minneapolis. James O’Keefe and I are going to go around town to different polling places and we’re going to see if they’re going to let us vote without ID, and then we’re going to see if they’re going to let us vouch for other people who aren’t even registered to vote,” Higby said in the video posted to YouTube.
Secretary of State Steve Simon later said poll workers did exactly what they were supposed to do to protect the integrity of the election.
“I think it’s pretty clear that they didn’t intend to vote. That’s not the issue here,” Moriarty said Wednesday in unveiling the accusations against O’Keefe and Higby.
Although neither man signed the oath to vouch for the other potential voter — an act that Moriarty said would have been criminal perjury — “you can’t give someone else’s name and misrepresent yourself in the process.”
Moriarty said Simon’s office informed her of the alleged misconduct, which led to the opening of a criminal investigation.
The state has several ways for unregistered voters to register on Election Day, including vouching. To vouch for someone, a voter already registered in the electoral district goes with an unregistered voter to the electoral district and signs an oath confirming the address of the unregistered voter. Under state law, a registered voter can vouch for up to eight people.
In an August press release from O’Keefe’s group, which calls itself “Justice League,” the people in the video “did not vote. The investigation was intended to test the limits of Minnesota’s vouching law and document how election workers enforce it on Election Day.”
O’Keefe is known for making undercover videos. His videos have led to criminal charges against him in the past, and he was arrested by Washington Post reporters in 2017 for trying to sell them on a false story.
“It’s not forbidden to be performative. It’s not forbidden to be offensive,” Moriarty told reporters. But “you can’t go to a polling place and misidentify yourself, use someone’s identity and tell our election judges that when you apply to vote.” »
MPR News reporter Peter Cox contributed to this story.
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