The Minneapolis Police Department said that voter-fraud allegations were being “evaluated” as Project Veritas dropped Tuesday a second bombshell video in its investigation into ballot harvesting on behalf of Rep. Ilhan Omar and other Democrats.
“ALLEGATIONS OF VOTER FRAUD BEING EVALUATED,” the department tweeted on Monday. “The MPD is aware of the allegations of vote harvesting. We are in the process of looking into the validity of those statements. No further information is available at this time on this.”
Project Veritas released Tuesday a second video in its “cash for ballots” investigation, this one showing a man speaking Somali allegedly telling another man how to fill out either a voter registration form or an absentee ballot application, then paying him $200 in “pocket money.”
Project Veritas President James O’Keefe said that he received the undercover footage, but did not identify the source.
The latest video also included a recorded conversation with a man identified as a ballot harvester who said he was paid $800 for his ballot, adding, “We don’t care if [it’s] illegal.”
“A lot of people will go to jail if this continues this way,” the man said. “If this continues this direction, many people will go to prison, or no one will vote in the city of Minneapolis. It is very, very corrupt.”
He and a man identified as a Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party member said that ballot harvesters would walk with voters into the booth under the guise of being translators, then tell them how to vote, or mark the ballots themselves.
ALLEGATIONS OF VOTER FRAUD BEING EVALUATED. ✅ The MPD is aware of the allegations of vote harvesting. We are in the process of looking into the validity of those statements. No further information is available at this time on this.
— Minneapolis Police (@MinneapolisPD) September 28, 2020
NEVER SEEN BEFORE: Cash-For-Ballot EXCHANGE caught on camera#CashForBallots pic.twitter.com/DCSLfjHeD6
— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) September 29, 2020
President Trump weighed in Monday with a call for an investigation after Project Veritas released a 16-minute video alleging that campaign operatives were rounding up absentee ballots from elderly Somali immigrants, and driving other voters to the polls, then paying them after they voted.
Liban Mohamed, brother of newly elected Minneapolis city councilman Jamal Osman, bragged on Snapchat about having 300 absentee ballots in his car, as shown in the video.
Two of those on the video said the operation was being run by a top member of Ms. Omar’s campaign, while the Omar camp denied any wrongdoing, saying that “amplifying a coordinated right-wing campaign to delegitimize a free and fair election this fall undermines our democracy.”
Ballot harvesting — the collection and turning in of absentee ballots — is legal in Minnesota, but the limit is three ballots per person per election. Filling out ballots for others is illegal under federal law, as is paying for votes.
The state ballot-harvesting law was in flux this summer after a court invalidated the three-ballot limitation in July, a ruling that was overturned by the Minnesota Supreme Court in September, after the Aug. 11 primary, as Fox9 in Minneapolis reported.
The MPD announcement came after the Hennepin County Attorney’s office said that it had “no information” about alleged illegal ballot harvesting, and said any evidence should be turned over to police.
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