Photo by Deb Gau Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, at right, answers questions from area residents at a tour stop in Granite Falls on Friday.

GRANITE FALLS — Election Day is only two months away, and it’s “crunch time” for the office that oversees Minnesota’s elections, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said.

At a visit to Granite Falls on Friday, Simon said he was hoping for good voter turnouts, and a smooth process at the election.

“That’s what I want, is high turnout and low drama,” Simon said.

Feelings around this year’s elections, especially the presidential election, will likely be intense, he said.

“Especially a presidential election, it’s always going to be intense,” Simon said. “It’s going to be especially intense when, like this year, people have very strong opinions about the candidates.”

Another thing adding to the intensity was that the presidential election was perceived as being a close race, he said. But he hoped that, in spite of that intensity, there would be no political violence or threats of violence.

“If any American has a problem with the certification of the election, or suspects or knows or think they know there was misconduct or illegal stuff going on, that’s fine. Bring your evidence, bring your witnesses, do your testimony, go to court. That’s where we resolve that stuff,” Simon said.

“But when the last court has issued the last ruling, we have to be done … And after that point, all of us as Americans have to get our arms around and accept the results, even if it didn’t go the way we want,” he said.

Simon was visiting Granite Falls as part of a statewide tour. He took questions from members of the public, and spoke about what his office does during Minnesota elections.

Simon said having good voting laws passed over the past 50 years played a big role in encouraging high voter turnout in Minnesota. He also spoke out in favor of recently-passed laws, like restoring voting rights to people convicted of a felony after they have completed their prison sentences.

“Overall, it’s been a really good mix, balancing access and security,” Simon said of Minnesota’s voting laws. Some of the key laws included same-day voter registration, which was passed 50 years ago.

“That’s a big deal. We were one of the first states in the country to do that,” he said.

Simon also said being able to vote from home also played a big role in keeping Minnesota voter turnouts high in 2020 during the COVID pandemic.

Simon said reforms like restoring voting rights to people who have completed felony sentences, automatic voter registration when eligible people renew a driver’s license, and voter pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds, “Are really going to put us in a good position over the next 50 years.”

Automatic voter registration was a way for more Minnesotans to get access to vote, Simon said.

It would also strengthen voter rolls, “because it means we get people in the system a lot earlier, months earlier than we otherwise would, so we can do screening and filtering and all that,” he said.

Simon said that, while Minnesota does not do purges of voter rolls, the state does work to check registered voter information for people who are ineligible to vote.

“We have this statewide voter registration system. There are millions of names in there, and we constantly — in many cases, every 24 hours — run them through and check them against multiple databases, including databases from the courts, the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Health, and the Social Security Administration,” he said.

“They help us find the deceased people, they help us find the people with immigration issues, they help us find the people who have committed felonies and are in prison and no longer eligible to vote,” Simon said.

Simon said disinformation would likely be one of the biggest challenges facing elections in Minnesota.

“When I talk about disinformation, I’m not talking about disagreement,” Simon said. “Disinformation is the intentional spread of knowingly false information.”

Simon used the example of allegations that his office was planning to manipulate vote numbers.

“That’s not a difference of opinion. That’s not saying I’m bad at my job or I’m not doing something right, or we should add this law or subtract that law. That’s just a total lie,” he said.

The Secretary of State’s Office does not count votes, but reports counts that are reported by election officials in cities, townships and counties.

Adding artificial intelligence technology to election disinformation or misinformation “becomes something really, really serious,” Simon said.

He used the example of a search assistant tool on the social media website X, that earlier this summer was giving out incorrect information on Minnesota voting laws.

Simon and other secretaries of state across the U.S. reached out to X with the suggestion that, if the search assistant tool was asked an election-related question, the user would be directed to a nonpartisan, nonprofit website that would answer those questions. It was the same solution that the AI chatbot ChatGPT had already adopted, he said.

It took weeks, but X did implement that suggestion, Simon said.

“It’s a real victory,” he said.

Simon said Minnesota has also taken other steps to fight disinformation, like banning “deepfake” audio and video messages within 90 days of an election.

Other ways to push back against disinformation and misinformation, Simon said, included focusing on transparency, and working together and communicating with local partners in cities, counties and townships.