Citizen / Council Relationships

Here is the value of local action to inform city councils of their options relating to election audits at the most local level, including so-called 'down ballot' races, such as for city council member, which are under normal process never audited (unless the computers report a close result percentage-wise).

In January 2026, Derek Lind spoke at the public comment period of the St. Francis City Council meeting. Then, by March, the council voted in favor of a resolution as a means of communicating with Anoka County, since the county had not replied to their questions.

Better quality videos here (Jan 20, 2026) and here (12-min excerpt of resolution discussion).

Full March 2nd, 2026 city council meeting here.

Background: St. Francis is 8th City in Anoka County Aiming for Stronger, more Thorough Audits

Headline: 4-1 Council Decision Expands Hand Count Audit

St. Francis recently became the 8th city (out of 21 cities) so far in Anoka County to pass a resolution to expand the hand count audit of their local elections. Nationwide and statewide, public opinion has continued to shift to a more transparent and verifiable process—one that requires no blind trust—from registering to casting votes to counting votes to auditing the results. This city council’s resolution focuses on the last part: auditing.

In Minnesota Statutes, specifically § 206.89, a postelection review hand count is a requirement for all counties, for at least a small number of their precincts. The precincts are randomly selected during the canvassing board meeting (several days after the general election) for a hand count audit of the top two or three races on the ballot, such as president or governor. Strangely, the certification of the county’s election (and the local elections within it, like for city councilmembers) occur in this same meeting. In other words, the audit only comes days after the certification. This is only one of many logical flaws in the current legislation regarding election audits in Minnesota. (Consider Oak Grove, whose council on a separate matter was the first to cancel its electronic poll pad agreement with Anoka County prior to the 2024 election.)

Voters in St. Francis may welcome their board’s decision, however just because a resolution was passed does not mean anything will happen. The final authority for this decision—on whether St. Francis’s two precincts (including down ballot races) will get hand count audited—rests with the Anoka County Canvassing Board, a 5-member board that meets several days after general election day, 2026.

Back in 2024, this board decided to ignore the requests of 7 cities which had collectively asked for 17 precincts to be audited.

As more voters learn how insufficient (and clever) the current audit process is, truly auditing elections will become a non-partisan demand. Else, as the saying goes, ‘the house always wins’. We can flip that to, ‘every voter wins’ by doing thorough audits of local elections.