Hennepin County prosecutors have charged Abdihakim Amin Essa, 22, who is not a citizen but is a permanent resident, with 13 counts of felony voting fraud. In 2018, Essa falsified 13 absentee ballot applications, and tried to cast one himself.
During that time, Essa worked on a campaign of a local politician, but prosecutors won’t reveal the name of the politician Essa was allegedly working for, or that politician’s party.
According to the criminal complaint, on July 30, 2018, Essa brought a “prospective voter” into the Hennepin County government center. This “prospective voter” didn’t have the proper identification, and then later returned with a different “helper” (not Essa) and a new application, with a different address.
The next day, Essa returned to the government center, but this time he was the “prospective voter” and someone else was the “helper.” The election workers recognized Essa, and then Essa “got nervous and acted as if he did not understand English.”
Once election workers were wise to Essa’s shenanigans, they looked through “9,000” absentee ballots and found “13” where Essa signed his own name, or his father’s name (his father is a U.S. citizen), as a witness. The county then notified the “voters” who were on these absentee ballots and told them they would have to vote again, but “none did.’
Other voting issues
The facts of this case are shocking. Already, we’ve just learned that one non-citizen can fraudulently vouch for at least 13 people to vote—who clearly were not citizens themselves. And the falsifying of the 13 absentee ballots was only caught because election officials knew to look for Essa’s name, due to his brazenly suspicious activity. How easy is it to cast an absentee ballot? How many other absentee ballots are falsified and never caught?
Even more troubling is the connection between Essa and what appears to be an organized scheme to commit voter fraud. Why aren’t prosecutors looking into the politician, and political party, that Essa was working for? Did the candidate or the party know about this organized effort?
This comes as the Minnesota Voters Alliance (MVA) is suing Minnesota’s Democrat Secretary of State Steve Simon for voter registration data that could help show the extent of voter fraud in Minnesota. Simon, in contravention of state law, has been refusing to release that information.
Many claim, without evidence, that fraudulent voting doesn’t exist, and that instances such as this are isolated incidences. But the people who make these claims really don’t know, because nobody knows for sure. But we should know for sure.
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Willis Krumholz
Willis L. Krumholz is a fellow at Defense Priorities. He holds a JD and MBA degree from the University of St. Thomas, and works in the financial services industry. The views expressed are those of the author only. You can follow Willis on Twitter @WillKrumholz.
