SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Today, DFL Party leaders held a press conference calling on Minnesota Republican leaders to correct the election-related disinformation they have spread and say to their base, with no hedging or qualifying, that the 2020 elections were free and fair and that Joe Biden is the President-elect.
A video of the press conference is available here.
“It is imperative that Minnesota Republicans tell their base the truth: the 2020 elections were not stolen, there was not widespread voter fraud, and Joe Biden is the legitimate President-elect of the United States of America,” said Ken Martin, Chairman of the Minnesota DFL Party. “We cannot stand idly by and allow threats of violence to consume our political system. We are better than this. Republican leaders must speak out now, not just to denounce violence but to repudiate the lies fueling that violence.”
“In the wake of the assault on the United States Capitol, we saw a lot of Republicans call for unity,” said State Senator Melisa Franzen. “I agree, we need to be able to move forward as a nation, but that will be impossible if Republicans insist on maintaining the fiction that our election was not free and fair. If Republican officials cannot or will not level with their base and set the record straight, they will have sabotaged any chance at actually uniting as a nation.”
“The 2020 election was the most scrutinized and picked over election in American history,” said State Representative Emma Greenman. “No stone was left unturned. And what did we find? Incontrovertible evidence of a free and fair election, of voters turning out to vote, of election officials doing their job, and of election judges, our friends and neighbors, showing up to do the work of our democracy. It’s long past time for Minnesota’s Republican leaders to admit this and stand up for our democracy, rather than further undermine it.”
Actions and Statements from Minnesota Republican Leaders Attacking the Integrity of the 2020 Elections:
Below is a non-comprehensive list of how senior Republican officials in Minnesota have attacked the integrity of the 2020 elections, which illustrates the need for them to set the record straight and correct the misinformation they have spread.
Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka spread misinformation on social media about postal workers throwing out Trump ballots and about dead people voting and claimed that these false stories may have been enough to swing Georgia to Donald Trump.
House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt argued that people who believe the election was stolen – people who bought Republican disinformation – should be given a seat at the decision-making table during future elections.
Representative Pete Stauber claims that he saw “questions of validity in certain states” and signed onto a lawsuit before the Supreme Court trying to overturn the results of the presidential election in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Georgia.
Representative Tom Emmer signed onto that same Supreme Court case trying to undo the election results and spent well over a month refusing to acknowledge Joe Biden as the President-elect.
Representative Jim Hagedorn voted against certifying the results of the 2020 elections. He also signed onto the Supreme Court case trying to invalidate millions of votes and has attacked the validity of the elections numerous times on social media. Hagedorn also posted on social media about an “eerily exact emerging pattern that makes the vote counting in Democrat-run battleground states suspicious.”
Representative Michelle Fischbach claimed that “Democrats did not win the votes of the American people, they are just finding votes at this point.” She also voted against certifying the results of the 2020 elections.
The Republican Party of Minnesota recruited local party leaders to amplify baseless claims of voter fraud and themselves repeated baseless accusations of “voter irregularities” grounded in no evidence whatsoever.