At a time when Democrats should be united in waging the battle against Trumpian authoritarianism, Minneapolis Democrats are in a fight between traditional moderate Democrats and the far-left/socialists. There are two leading candidates for Mayor. Jacob Frey is a moderate. Omar Fateh is a socialist. The DFL machinery in Minneapolis is run by the far-left/socialists and recently, the socialists claim to have delivered an endorsement for Fateh. This is not true. The endorsement was fraudulent. Let me explain.
Unelected Delegates
Who gets to vote for endorsements? On caucus night, neighbors elected delegates to represent them at endorsing conventions. In Minneapolis, people were added to delegate lists after caucus night. Almost all post-caucus additions were far-left/socialists. The delegate manipulation has been documented in nearly every ward with a contested race. For example, Pearll Warren in Ward 5 took pictures of delegate sign-up sheets at the caucus and compared them to electronic lists of delegates. Dozens of people who never attended the caucuses were added to the delegate lists after the close of the caucuses. Moreover, moderates mysteriously disappeared from the delegate rolls. CM LaTrisha Vetaw reported she sat next to a properly elected delegate who was ghosted from the delegate lists. This delegate list manipulation skewed votes for Fateh.
Not Upgrading Alternates to Delegates
At caucuses, alternate delegates are also selected. Alternates are people who will be upgraded to voting delegates, in the event an elected delegate must depart or does not show up to a convention. The process should be simple. Count which delegate slots are unfilled. Upgrade alternates in unfilled delegate spots. On the first vote, there were 160 alternates that were supposed to be upgraded. There was one person with a computer to upgrade them. The first endorsement vote was taken before all the alternates were upgraded. This skewed votes for Fateh. A similar manipulation occurred with the second and final vote. There were people waiting to be upgraded when the vote was taken. This skewed votes for Fateh.
Don’t Count All the Votes – First Vote
The first ballot was done electronically. People were given a code to log on to an electronic system to record their vote. They would get an email confirmation back. Votes would be tallied instantaneously. This didn’t happen. People cast their electronic votes, but never received a confirmation. It took four hours to report the results of the first ballot. And over 220 votes were simply unaccounted for, about a third of the votes. Were these Frey votes? Did non-delegates vote? We will never know.
Don’t Check for Quorum – Second Vote
Quorum checks make sure there are enough delegates to legitimately conduct business. If enough people depart the convention, the convention can no longer conduct business. The sample DFL rules say that it takes 50% of delegates to do business. The second vote was taken at about 9:30 pm, after the convention had been going for nearly 12 hours. Many delegates had left the convention. In addition, candidate Dwayne Davis, who possibly received 1/5 of the votes in the first round, said he was going to continue in the race without the endorsement and his supporters went home. A casual view of the floor confirmed it was almost certainly unlikely there was a quorum to conduct a second vote. Proper quorum confirmation requests from the floor were ignored by the socialist chair.
Just Have the Convention Chair Declare an Endorsement Without an Actual Vote
Under DFL convention rules, when a delegate votes, they cast their vote on a written ballot. The ballots are counted in front of multiple people, to ensure the count is fair and accurate. Ballots are signed so they can be the ballots can be audited and traced to the voter.
None of this happened. The Fateh campaign moved that there be a “badge” vote, where delegates would just hold up their badges and the chair would simply look out and decide whether there were enough badges in the air for the vote to endorse would pass. The far-left socialist chair, unsurprisingly decided that 60% of the delegates held up their badges for Fateh. And declared Fateh won the endorsement.
This DFL convention did not result in a legitimate endorsement. The result was a theft of the democratic process. This is how banana republics run elections to create the tyranny of the minority.
The far-left/socialist Minneapolis DFL has shown over and over it is incapable of doing anything other than manipulating the process to get far-left and socialist candidates elected. Perhaps such changing of the rules in the middle of the game comes when the extremes who control the levers of power, but the far-left socialists are no better than MAGA when it comes to manipulating democracy. It is past time to end the caucus system in Minneapolis to limit the opportunities for scheming by insiders.
Related:
Open Letter to Omar Fateh about His Campaign’s False Claims
Minneapolis DFL Mails False Fatah Endorsement to Voters in Defiance of State DFL
Hostile Takeover of State DFL Planned by DSA Co-Founder
Minneapolis DFL Placed on Probation, Fateh Endorsement Overturned
Minneapolis DFL Convention: A Summary of Challenges and Complaints
I was there, it happened as Tim described. I have been to many DFL conventions; have never seen anything like this. It was a shambles. I was an alternate, seated at 5 pm, in line for that as a vote was taken. The whole affair was UNFAIR and ILLEGAL, in my opinion. The endorsement must be overturned. It is a shame the socialists work so hard on cheating instead of just getting along in the DFL. If they need this so much, they should run under their own DSA banner, and try to convince the public of their ideas. Instead, so much energy going into cheating. They should remove the “democratic” part from their name.
Nick, help me understand how you know there were 478 votes for park board after the 2nd mayoral badge vote? There was NO counting, just a quick visual assessment that there were ‘more’ for one candidate than another. It was chaotic and insane!
Results from Park Board At-Large ballot (478 ballots cast):
Michael Wilson, 398 (endorsed)
Tom Olsen, 394 (endorsed)
Amber Frederick, 363 (endorsed)
Meg Forney, 32
Mary McKelvey, 31
Tim Peterson, 30
Matthew Dowgwillo, 25
Spoiled ballots, 25
No endorsement, 7
How can you claim there wasn’t quorum when 478 delegates voted in the Park Board At-Large race at 9:45, which is clearly higher than the quorum requirement? And delegates were not allowed to enter the convention hall between the mayor and park board votes (although delegates could leave if they desired), so the number of delegates present for the mayoral vote was even higher than 478.
Also how can you say raising badges aren’t legitimate when Steve and Bob were endorsed on a voice vote? Raised badges are more precise than a voice vote.
The normal process to distribute and collect paper ballots is methodical, time-consuming, and controlled. Prior to this convention, 100% of the conventions I’ve attended balloting is by precinct. In this case, it was just mass chaos with ballots being passed around and randomly returned.