Top MN Republican candidate part of Cleta Mitchell's national push to recruit 'army' of activists to watch elections

Kim Crockett, Minnesota Republicans’ presumptive nominee for secretary of state, is part of a national right wing network recruiting an army of activists to become poll workers, stoking fear among Democratic voting rights activists that they’ll seek to intimidate voters. Mitchell said in aMarch podcast interview that Republicans didn’t pay enough attention to the mechanics of elections — from campaign finance to election laws — until 2020, when they were “awakened,” presumably by Trump’s frequent false claims of fraud and attempt to overturn the election he lost. “And I said OK if they can do this, we can do that in Minnesota.” These activists researched election officials’ social media and political donations to see if they were Republicans or Democrats, Mitchell said. You gotta be in those nursing homes, and make sure they’re not stealing the votes of elderly voters in nursing homes and homeless people — the most vulnerable voters.” Claims like these of widespread election fraud were repeatedly debunked after the 2020 election by dozens of judicial decisions, Republican election officials in states like Georgia, as well as then-Attorney General William Barr. The Times report continued: “On Election Day, Republican poll watchers in 13 polling places were observed being disruptive, hovering too closely or taking photographs, according to reports that elections workers filed to the county.” The Fairfax County Registrar Scott Konopasek resigned in part due to the bombardment, saying he’d never seen anything like it in 30 years.