Amy Livingston had a migraine headache. As the DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party) Head Teller responsible for tabulating votes at Minneapolis’s mayoral endorsement convention, she was dealing with a broken spreadsheet, malfunctioning computers, and mounting chaos.
When she finally left the Minneapolis Target Center that July evening, she had no idea her departure would become a footnote in one of the most spectacular electoral meltdowns in recent Minnesota political history.
The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has now nullified the entire convention after finding “substantial failures” that make a mockery of basic democratic processes. In a damning seven-page report, the state party’s Constitution, Bylaws and Rules Committee declared the electronic voting system “substantially flawed” and revoked the local party’s endorsement of mayoral candidate Omar Fateh, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
The DFL has also vacated its endorsement of Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate in Minneapolis, state Sen. Omar Fateh. The Minnesota Democratic Party had not endorsed a mayoral candidate in 16 years before backing Fateh.
Fateh denounced the decision. He said in a video posted to social media that 28 “party insiders” voted to take away the endorsement behind closed doors. He argued the group included supporters and donors of Jacob Frey, current mayor of Minneapolis and Fateh’s competition.
“This is exactly what Minneapolis voters are sick of: the insider games, the backroom decisions and feeling like our voice doesn’t matter in our own city,” Fateh said.
“Let me be clear, we’re still in this fight,” he said. “And we’re going to win.”
Background
The convention, held July 19 at the Target Center, was supposed to choose between five mayoral candidates, including incumbent Jacob Frey, who served as mayor during the devastating 2020 George Floyd riots. Instead, it became a textbook case of how not to run an election.
The failures began with basic security lapses. Delegates sign a master check-in sheet during registration, but convention organizers left it unsecured, creating opportunities to alter ID numbers used in the voting process. A digital credentials spreadsheet used for vote counting was also left unsecured and accessed by people outside the credentials committee, including campaign workers.
Then the numbers started falling apart. The mayoral race had an undercount of 176 votes. In the first round, officials counted 578 total votes, but after reconciliation, they discovered 754 ballots had actually been cast. One candidate was improperly dropped from the ballot in the second round.
The technical problems compounded the chaos. Livingston’s tabulation spreadsheet contained multiple broken formulas. When it stopped working properly after the first round of mayoral voting, volunteers scrambled to help fix it. The spreadsheet’s size and the computer’s speed created additional delays, and even transferring data to a faster computer took hours to produce results.
By this point, delegates were noticing problems. When one delegate observed there were far fewer recorded votes than delegates present and moved to redo the first vote, no one seconded the motion. Later, someone successfully moved to suspend the rules and vote by “show of badges,” completely changing the voting method mid-convention.
The state party’s investigation concluded that “the challengers have proven by clear and convincing evidence that the endorsement of Omar Fateh for mayor of Minneapolis was facilitated by the use of a flawed electronic voting system.” The report determined both the first and second ballots must be “disregarded in their entirety.”
All this has placed the Minneapolis party on probation for two years under state supervision. It cannot conduct another mayoral endorsement convention in 2025 or endorse any mayoral candidate through its committees. The local party must submit a compliance plan and demonstrate “that it is capable of acting in accordance with the standard DFL principles and practices.”
All five mayoral candidates now receive equal access to voter rolls, effectively nullifying any advantage Fateh might have gained from his tainted endorsement. The state party also recommended that any electronic voting system used by DFL units require prior review and approval.
Broader implications
The people of Minneapolis — like those in so many Democrat-controlled cities — have suffered through many such messy (to say the least) in past years. Bear in mind, the recent episode occurred in the same city that experienced widespread fiery riots in 2020, highlighting ongoing governance challenges. When political parties cannot manage their own internal processes with basic competence and integrity, it raises questions about their fitness to govern a major American city.
The emergence of a DSA candidate as the beneficiary of this flawed process also reflects the growing influence of socialist ideology within the Democratic Party. While Omar Fateh bears no apparent responsibility for the convention’s technical failures, his candidacy represents a dangerous leftward drift that Catholics and constitutional conservatives recognize as incompatible with American founding principles.
Amy Livingston’s migraine that July evening became the least of anyone’s problems. The real headache belongs to Minneapolis voters who deserve better from their political leaders, regardless of party affiliation. Democratic self-governance requires competent administration of basic civic functions. When that fails, everyone suffers the consequences.
