A quick check of your Facebook news feed might contain a plea for signatures to recall Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. The petition is bogus and does not meet the legal requirements for a recall petition under state statute and the Minnesota Constitution. Signing this petition is both worthless and risky as conservatives willingly divulge their name and personal emails to an unknown entity.
According the the Minnesota Secretary of State website, Article VIII, Section 6 of the Minnesota Constitution and Minnesota Statute 211C provides the process to recall elected state officials.
Minnesota Administrative Rules lay out the general requirements for a petition as well as the the verification of the petition. If these rules are not carefully followed, the petition is worthless.
Lets start with the requirements for the form of the petition itself. There are many rules and they are specific, notably the size of the document, the font size allowed along with the number of signatures allowed per page:
Form and content governed by Minnesota Statute require that all eligible voters signing the petition must live within the district where the state officer serves, as clearly outlined in 4i below:
To be clear, putting together a petition and gathering signatures online does not meet the statutory, constitutional or administrative rule requirements to be considered legitimate.
The next time you see a petition in your favorite Facebook group or news feed, don’t sign. You never know who is getting your information or how it will be used.