Senator Howe Wants Audit of 2020 Election, Put Fear to Rest

ROCKVILLE -- Republican State Senator Jeff Howe of Rockville wants an audit of the state's election system and the results of last year's election. To be clear, he's not alleging there's anything wrong with the system but feels it could go a long way toward restoring confidence in our state's electoral process.

Whether it's right or wrong, whether there is or there isn't, I think that we have to show the people that our election system is secure, it is fair, and it works.  Right now there is a number of folks out there that don't believe that is the case.

Howe is on the Senate Elections Committee and is working on a bill to use the Legislative Auditor to conduct an independent forensic audit of the election system.

He says he's tried to reach out to Secretary of State Steve Simon to work with him, but he has not heard back.

To hopefully either show where we need to fix the system or show that hey the system worked, there is no problem, you can have faith in what happened and that's just the way the results came out.  Otherwise, my fear is that people are going to say my vote doesn't count, the election is rigged, I'm going to stay home.

Howe says he's trying to avoid what happened this week in Washington, D.C. happening in St. Paul.

Howe says he supports the right to protest but vehemently disagrees with violence, destruction, and rioting. He calls the people who broke into the nation's Capitol no better than the people who burned down Minneapolis.