Minnesota bill would remove deceased residents from voter registration system

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota lawmakers are looking at a bill that take deceased people off of the state’s voter registration system.

As it currently stands, the Secretary of State must create a monthly list of deceased registered voters that gets sent to each county auditor.

They they update the registration system and change the voters status to “deceased”.

The new language added by HF 3722 would “remove” the deceased person from the registration system.

If passed, auditors would have to have their voter registration system updated by June 1 of next year.

The Secretary of State’s Office says they are not in favor of the bill and that it will make it harder to keep track of deceased voters if they are purged from the system.

“We believe the way the law is currently written, and the way that the system is set up, does what the intent of the bill is: To ensure that deceased individuals are not voting in our elections. But (it) would remove the critical ability for us to maintain the historical record of those individuals,” said Paul Linnell, director of elections at the Secretary of State’s Office.

The bill has been referred to the house Elections Finance and Government Operations committee.