Conservative Influencers Charged After Posing as Voters in Bid to Expose Fraud

Thank you all for being here. I'm Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty. Before the August 11th primary election, this office was very clear that reports of unlawful activity related to the election would be investigated and charged if appropriate. The primary election went smoothly and the systems we rely on for safe, free, and fair voting functioned well. One way to register to vote on election day in Minnesota is to have a registered voter from your precinct go with you to the polling place to vouch that you live in the precinct by signing an oath confirming your address. Vouching is commonly used in senior living facilities by residents who have not updated their driver's license to reflect their current address. In the 2024 general election, less than 0.6 of votes were cast using the vouching process. That's 0.6. On the day of the primary election this August 11th, a group of people were attempting to cast doubt on the state's vouching system by posting videos of themselves on social media. We were alerted to this conduct by the Minnesota Secretary of State's office. This conduct has been the subject of investigation and review. That review is now complete. Today, we are charging two individuals, James O'Keefe and Cameron Higbee, with felony counts of unlawful voting and identity theft. Free and fair elections are the bedrock of democracy, and their protection is one of our highest priorities. Mr. O'Keefe and Mr. Higbee entered polling places in multiple instances, identified themselves using names of registered voters in those precincts without those voters' knowledge or permission. Both men stopped short of signing the oath we all signed before receiving our ballot. But Minnesota law states clearly that no individual shall intentionally misrepresent their identity in applying for a ballot. Having entered polling places without legitimate purposes and intentionally misrepresenting their identity to election judges in applying for a ballot, the charges filed today are appropriate to address the conduct of Mr. O'Keefe and Mr. Higbee. I want to reiterate our commitment to safe, free, and fair elections. Our office has had regular meetings with Hennepin County election staff in preparation for both the primary and the general election this year. The system for identifying misconduct and responding to it functioned well during the primary, is already up and running during early voting, and will be ready on Election Day to respond to any additional issues. I also want to thank our election judges who witnessed the unlawful conduct, reported it, and cooperated with the investigation. Your work has helped protect our elections, and we will have your back during the voting period and on election day. To the citizens of Hennepin County, I encourage you to use your voice, make a plan, and vote. Take part in this election and know that we are prepared to hold anyone accountable who engages in unlawful activity related to our elections accountable in a Hennepin County courtroom. Thank you. Questions? Are these guys in jail? If not, what's the plan? The question is, are these guys in jail? No, they are not. We have issued this as a summons, which is appropriate under the circumstances. So the process is the clerk's office will send them copies of the complaint with a date to appear here in Minnesota for their first appearance. Mary? Did the two men act alone, or were others involved? The question was, did they act alone, or were others involved? I don't speculate on that. We just looked at what their behavior was, what the witness statement said, looked at appropriate charges, and we're going ahead with these charges against them. Without their own videos that are posted publicly, could you have charged this case? Yes. Evidence otherwise? Question is, without their public videos, could we have charged this case? The answer is yes. The election judges noted, in all of these different precincts, the election judges noted this strange behavior. I think many of them referred to it. Police did investigate by interviewing them. We know what they said. We know that they gave the names of registered voters without their permission. So yes, we would have been able to go forward without their video. And would any sort of investigative journalism, exposing vulnerabilities, defense work for them? Is there a rationale for that? Yeah. The question is, I think what you're getting at is, can an investigative journalist who's trying to seek out any vulnerabilities in our system do something like this? And I think that's a really important question. If you identify as a journalist, there is no such thing as undercover investigation in the polling place. You have to identify yourself as a journalist in the polling place, which they did not do. So, yeah, so the question, the question is, where did they get the identities of registered voters? We don't know that. But we can tell you that the registered voters were interviewed, the ones, some were deceased, but others were alive and did not have any idea how these people got their information and did certainly did not consent to them using their identity. Yeah, the question is about we have an election, obviously, coming up next week. I think it's our responsibility, actually, to make sure that people know what is allowed and what is not allowed in the polling place. And so this is not meant to send a message. It's meant for these particular people to understand that what they did was unlawful. And I would say, in addition to that, don't, you know, if you don't know what's lawful or unlawful, please don't do that in a polling place. We want to have fair, free, and safe elections. And there are very strict rules about who can be in the polling place, how far away you have to be in the polling place. Look at the Secretary of State's website to see what's allowed and what isn't allowed. Did you speak to, I think you said the Secretary of State alerted your office to this. Was there any reports that you used the Sheriff's Office to speak to the process? Yes. So the process, and yes, we heard about it through the Secretary of State. Also, we as the county attorney's office represent our elections director and elections officer here. They had a very good process for having election judges document any unusual behavior. And so that was documented. The Minneapolis Police Department did do some investigation and one of our investigation, one of our investigators did additional investigation. Yes. Yes. So the question is about safeguards in the vouching process. One of the things that these people did, which wasn't present in the video, was you have to sign an affidavit to be able to vouch for someone. And that affidavit says that you are a registered voter in that precinct so that you can vouch for this person who is also supposed to be a registered voter. They did not sign that oath. And that oath in and of itself, if you sign that oath and you do not live in that ward or you're vouching for somebody who does not, that's perjury. It's a felony. So there's a strong deterrent for people not to misuse the vouching process. And as I said, it's used very rarely in 0.6% of the votes and I think over 3.2 million in the 2024 election. And it is primarily used, and this is understandable, obviously, by senior citizens who are living in a place they just haven't updated their license because maybe they don't drive anymore. So it's not used that well or that much. But there are safeguards here. If you sign that oath and you are lying about it or misrepresenting it, it is a felony. in that vein it's just this one yes yes there is uh there is tracking after the fact to see that um that person is a registered voter yes sir uh how many of the victims so question is how many victims were deceased i can't remember off the top of my head we can get that information to you i will tell you in the interview i if i recall one of the voters whose name was used, actually did vote. So he was shocked that somebody had used his name in an attempt to vouch. And remember here, although they used these names, which were not their own, they misrepresented their identity to the judges. They didn't do the oath because that would have been perjury. They stopped short of that. You talk about that they did not sign the oath. Correct. Can you, does that give them a way to say that we didn't commit a crime then because we didn't take it all the way. Can you explain why you think it's still a crime because yeah, the question is if, um, they didn't take it all the way, they stopped short of signing the oath. Uh, what are we charging them with essentially? So there's a difference between intent to vote and intent to apply for a ballot. The application of a voting ballot in and of itself is a multi-step process. They did begin to apply for a ballot. You cannot begin to apply you apply for a ballot and misrepresent yourself. So those are two different questions, whether they actually intended to vote, or whether they intended to start the process of applying for a ballot. I can't anticipate what their defense is. I'm sure we'll hear from them. Did you have a question? Yeah, the question is about the federal government. I'm unaware that they opened an investigation into these specific cases. The question is about the sentence on these cases. Um, my guess is that they're presumptive probation under the Minnesota sentencing guidelines. So no, they wouldn't be going to prison. Um, they could do some local jail time, but that's not, it is a, it's a low level offense in terms of Minnesota felonies. We take it seriously because you just cannot come into a polling place and misrepresent yourself using some other voters identity. Yesterday, the press conference got canceled. Does that reflect some problems in getting the charge with Minneapolis police not pulling more with the idea? You know, the process of getting a complaint through the entire system, it's, as you all probably know, is very complex. And sometimes it just doesn't make it through all the steps it needs to go. And we did not want to keep you waiting. So we just changed it to today. multiple questions in there um no some of it was um as all of you know they dressed up in what i refer to as costumes uh they said some things that were derogatory um as you said um it could be perceived as being performative. Did that play any role in this? I would say no. It is not against the law to be performative. It is not against the law to be offensive. It's not against the law to say the things that they said if you're standing outside the polling. So no, we can't let people's political bent or whatever they're here to do affect our decisions in deciding whether to issue felony charges. We take that very seriously. So none of that played a role. The fundamental issue here is you cannot go into a polling place and misidentify yourself and use other people's identity um it and and say that to our election judges as you apply for a ballot whether or not you intend to vote maybe what jeff was asking too was does the intent matter like if their intent is to make a video that gets a million multi-million views not really to commit the crime or you know that you're using them up does that matter in this and then then i have a follow-up okay so the question is um if their intent is simply to get a lot of social media uh attention uh no that's not a crime people can go on social media they can say offensively they can say whatever they want to um and so that gets back to the crime that we have charged i think it's pretty clear they did not intend to vote right in fact i think at some point they said we stopped short we so that's not the question here the question is did they intend and did they start to apply for a ballot and the question is yes you cannot walk into a polling place um and think of you know when you all go to vote you show up there you're directed to somebody you walk up to them the person says what is your name you cannot give somebody else's name and misrepresent yourself and as you uh go through the process so that's the piece of it that i think is important whether or not they intended to vote um is irrelevant so if they say that they were exposed that they that they're if they say that their videos exposed weaknesses in this voting system do you think the videos did that and if not you say why not i don't the the question is did their video show any weaknesses in the voting system, I would say as edited, one might think so, but they kept out the part that they did not sign the oath. They didn't tell anybody that. In fact, when they were at the polling place, they made excuses to leave as soon as the election judge asked them to sign the oath. And so my recollection, I haven't seen all the videos, but they did not include that because I think it's an important piece of this. And I think this is important for Minnesotans to understand, too. To vouch for somebody else, you have to sign an oath that you are a registered voter in that ward or in Minnesota, in that ward, living in that ward. And if you sign that and you're not, it is a felony. It is a felony. And that, in my recollection, was not something they ever put in the video. I think they just put in their videos, hey, look how easy it is to vouch. We can just go in and say our name is something or another. And I think, I think that's, I mean, really their intent doesn't matter. I don't know what their intent was, but I do think it's important for Minnesotans to understand that, that vouching, we've had vouching for 50 years in Minnesota. There are strong protections there because if you sign that oath, you are subject to perjury and a felony conviction. So I think voters should take away that the system worked exactly the way it should have in the primary election because the election judges said okay we understand you're telling us you're here to vote we're here to vouch for somebody here's a part of the process please sign the oath and then they found reasons to right yeah so the question is have we spoken to them we have not uh i as in any case uh our expectation is that somebody will get a lawyer and then we can't talk to them uh they will have a court date they'll be notified of the court date and then they need to come here if they don't come here uh there will be a warrant for their arrest yep yeah the question is about is there any ambiguity in the applying part of the statute um it's a multi-step process they did begin to apply I mean, that's clear. When you walk in, you say to the election judge, I am so and so, you are not that person. And I am here to vouch. That is part of the application process. I can't anticipate any of their defenses, whatever they are, we'll address them at that time. Thank you so much.