Minnesota Gov. Sent Voters To Partisan 'Bold Progressives' Site

MINNESOTA — Heavy traffic on Super Tuesday caused problems for the poll finder on the Minnesota Secretary of State website, at one point sending voters to a liberal-leaning website for information.

When trying to use the feature, users were sent to a page that states: "Due to heavy demand, you may be directed to a trusted external site to find your polling place information. Click here to search for your polling place." Torey Van Oot, a reporter with the Star Tribune, says she was redirected from the state website to a site asking voters to choose "bold progressive candidates."

The tool should only be sending voters to nonpartisan websites.

"As many are now aware, our online pollfinder was inaccessible for a period of time earlier today," Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said in a statement.

"We have now restored service to that tool. We have no evidence that Minnesota’s voting systems were hacked or otherwise interfered with in any way."

Simon said his offices policy during technical issues is that voters are redirected to find their information via Google’s nonpartisan Voting Information Project.

"In an urgent attempt to restore service, a staff person diverged from our emergency plan and, in a serious lapse of judgment, linked to a partisan website that contained polling place information," Simon said.

"The moment this error was discovered, we corrected the link. The link in question was active for approximately 17 minutes."

"Anyone who knows me knows that I place the highest possible value on the nonpartisanship of this office, and I deeply regret this error," he continued. Every Minnesota voter deserves a voting experience free of partisan influence, and I am committed to providing exactly that. My office will provide any updates as they are needed. Given the events of today, I’ve chosen not to attend scheduled activities at the legislature this afternoon. Instead, I’ll be working closely with staff in our office to make sure the rest of the day goes smoothly and we can reliably report results this evening."

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