The voting process at the Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party convention in July was such a mess that state DFL leadership investigated and nullified the local party’s endorsements. Now the Minneapolis DFL wants the state DFL to restore the results it nullified and give the endorsement back to DFL candidate Omar Fateh, a member of the Democrat Socialists of America (DSA), KSTP Television reports.
Fateh is challenging incumbent DFL Mayor Jacob Frey, who came in second in the shady Minneapolis endorsement convention.
The Federalist previously reported that the Minnesota DFL’s Constitution, Bylaws and Rules Committee (CBRC) investigated the local convention and found the voting process had “substantial failures.”
The investigation revealed that the convention organizers undercounted 176 votes in the mayoral race. During voting, one candidate was “errantly eliminated from contention.” The digital spreadsheet used to count votes was left unsecured. The computer tallying results didn’t work properly, and the task of tallying results was switched to a different computer in the middle of the process. The creator of the results program left before results were counted. At some point the convention members decided to change their voting method from digital to “show of badges.”
With so many obvious breaches in election integrity, it looks like the convention was rigged. But the local DFL wants the state DFL to ignore all that its investigation found and hand Fateh an endorsement.
The state DFL barred Minneapolis DFL from conducting another 2025 mayoral endorsing convention and from endorsing a mayoral candidate in 2025. Minneapolis DFL is on probation for two years, and it must convince the state DFL that it can meet the “standard DFL principles and practices.”
The Federalist asked the state DFL if it would consider reinstating the local party’s endorsement but did not receive a response. It should not.
This is more than internal party squabbling. The endorsement matters because Minneapolis is so heavily Democrat that candidates who get the DFL endorsement usually win the election. While it is not required, it is common for DFL candidates who do not receive the party endorsement for a particular race to drop out. This means a handful of DFL delegates have more power deciding the election at the summer endorsement convention than the general public in the fall general election.
But the public will decide this race. When the state DFL nullified Fateh’s endorsement in August, it instructed Minneapolis DFL to give all five mayoral candidates access to the voter rolls, an advantage usually given only to the endorsed candidate.
If the Minneapolis DFL can’t see that the many anomalies in the endorsement convention election render the results useless, the party should never be left in charge of another election. Its credibility is shot.
The Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party should be embarrassed by its request to be released from the consequences of its shoddy election. Why not let the public decide between the five candidates, without the party’s hands on the race?
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
