Steve Simon addresses election interference

Fox 9 Morning News. Welcome back. More early voting underway. This is a live look at one of the polling places open right now as of about 15 minutes ago. This is in Minneapolis, where as you can see, election officials standing by, ready to help people get through and cast their votes early. There are opportunities like this today, tomorrow, and of course, On Election Day on Tuesday. Yes, the record early voter turnout we've been talking about. Election Day is officially the day after tomorrow. Lots of focus locally and nationwide on Minnesota's election and election process. Last Sunday, you'll recall, we had Secretary of State candidate Tad Jude here on our show. Well, now we are joined by current Secretary of State for the past 11 years, Steve Simon. Secretary Simon, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. We know there's a lot of focus, of course, the state, locally, but also nationally. President Trump has called Minnesota elections corrupt. Chairs of both political parties in Minnesota have said that they disagree. Your response when you hear this? Yeah, I hand it to the two party chairs. We have a very honest and well-respected system. We know that for a couple reasons. First, the polls tell us that. Even the worst poll is about two to one confident to not. Plus... We keep turning out in droves. We keep turning out year after year after year in record shattering, usually number one in the nation turnout. So that tells me that people have a fundamental level of confidence, that it's fundamentally honest and clean. And I think we're going to see that again on Tuesday. We've got great partners around the state, law enforcement and counties and cities and townships. I think we're going to be in good shape. And you have indicated that your office has been preparing for the possibility of federal interference. There's such a magnifying glass of people around the country and the world watching what's happening here in Minnesota. Expand on what that entails as far as your overall preparation on so many different levels. Right, the bottom line is we just want to make sure that everyone's freedom to vote is unimpeded. That's the key thing, whether that's a weather event, whether that's a power outage, or whether it's any potential interference from anyone. So we've been gaming out for a long time, most of this last year, scenarios that might involve such interference. It's not necessarily a prediction, it's just a precaution we have to take, and we're taking it. And we have, as I said, excellent partners around the state and even outside of the state, whether that's law enforcement, Or folks in counties and cities and townships. I feel really good that we're gonna be able to remove any obstacles from the path of voters. And that's regardless of how they vote, whether they vote in person on Election Day, in person today or tomorrow, whether they've already voted by mail. We just want to ensure that everyone's freedom to vote is unimpeded. And with that record early voting turnout, where are you seeing some of those early voting opportunities take place the most? And what does that indicate to you? Yeah, we as of here, I'm breaking some news. As of the end of yesterday, we have calculated that 848,000 Minnesotans have already voted. That is the highest midterm. Early voting that we've ever had and that just assumes it stops now. That's not even counting whoever's gonna vote today and whoever's gonna vote tomorrow. So that tells me that there's a real enthusiasm for early voting, probably a little early to conclude that it necessarily and certainly means higher overall turnout. It's possible that it just means regular voters are shifting the way that they vote. That instead of on election day, they're going early. But I would bet on the fact that we probably will get an uptick in voter turnout. Keep in mind we're almost always number one in We have a real shot to achieve that result again. Well, we will be watching. Those are some big numbers continuing to come in as well. And again, last minute reminders, we've got about 15 seconds left. We're out of time, but this last minute reminders for people who are still heading to the polls in the next couple of days. Yeah, if you have any questions about anything, how to register or where to go early versus dropping off your mail ballot that you might still have in your hand, go to our website, mnvotes.gov, that's mnvotes.gov. All right, Secretary of State Steve Simon, thank you. We appreciate it. Thank you.