Sahan Journal reported that an FBI agent recently questioned several Somali-American residents of a highrise apartment in South Minneapolis about their voting methods during the 2020 special election in Minneapolis to fill the Ward 6 seat left open after Abdi Warsame left to run the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority.
A St. Cloud man was sentenced to two years probation and fined $214 for requesting an absentee ballot despite being ineligible to vote due to a 2018 felony conviction. The man did not submit the ballot.
A group of policy experts calling themselves the COVID roadmap group, which includes the University of Minnesota’s Michael Osterholm, is releasing a blueprint for how the U.S. should plan to live with COVID-19 in the future.
Dakota County Sheriff Tim Leslie will not seek re-election.
Minnesotan Paralympians Mike Schultz and Sydney Peterson won silver medals in snowboarding and nordic skiing, respectively.
The U.S. tombstone shortage has been exacerbated by 3M’s decision to stop manufacturing sand-blast resistant adhesive stencils.
A logging truck damaged eight gas pumps at the Pelican Bay IGA in Orr, Minnesota.
Lake Superior froze.
Sahan Journal is doing the job that the rest of the Twin Cities media should be doing.
Feeding our Future, now this. Why aren’t the others covering this in this depth?
I don’t understand how a person ends up being fined simply for requesting a ballot, unless it’s clear that they were absolutely aware that they remained ineligible to vote. Notably, in this case, the individual wasn’t guilty of actually voting while ineligible. The problem with keeping people ineligible to vote after they have apparently met the requirements for completing their sentence/parole is that there’s no obvious reason for not being allowed to vote, and there’s confusion over when they become eligible. And quite frankly, once you’re out of jail/prison you should be able to vote, regardless of parole status. This nonsense about limiting freedoms that aren’t even related to the original crime is nonsense, and serves only a cruel purpose by setting up people to fail. Either they’ve served their time, or they haven’t. Fine, prevent them from owning a gun if they committed a violent crime, or prevent them from holding an accounting job if they’ve embezzled, but unless they actually got convicted of election-related crimes, don’t stop them from voting. I’m not even convinced that you should be prevented from voting while you’re in jail/prison.
I have heard various concerns about voting in the West Bank Somali community, from persons in it whom I know. Perhaps the most serious concern–not necessarily involving improper activity–is bloc voting for certain candidates based on dicta from certain elders of supposed authority.
Lots of churches do that, too. I don’t like it either way, but I don’t think we should pretend that it’s limited to the Somali community.
There has been concern that some of the candidates did not live in the ward.
And, does that concern have merit? This is a “some people say” moment. Maybe there’s truth to it, maybe not. But “there has been concern” is a rumor, at best.