1 hour ago
3
Hennepin County prosecutors connected Wednesday charged James O'Keefe, 42, and Cam Higby, 26, with felony unlawful voting and individuality theft implicit videos they filmed during Minnesota's Aug. 11 primary, according to a quality merchandise from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office.
The bureau said some men visited aggregate precincts successful Hennepin County and misrepresented their identities by giving predetermination judges the names of registered voters successful the precinct, without those voters' cognition oregon permission. The bureau said they posted the videos to societal media to effort to undermine assurance successful Minnesota's voting systems.
Secretary of State Steve Simon said successful the merchandise that immoderate effort to disrupt oregon deceive predetermination workers "will not beryllium tolerated."
The merchandise cites a Minnesota instrumentality that bars intentionally misrepresenting a person's individuality erstwhile applying for a ballot, depositing a ballot successful a ballot container oregon attempting to ballot by machine. It did not accidental erstwhile O'Keefe and Higby are owed successful court.
What the video of James O'Keefe showed
The charges stem from videos seen millions of times, successful which activists who telephone themselves the Citizen Justice League posed arsenic Minnesota voters. The radical said they were investigating Minnesota's 53-year-old elector voucher law.
The video begins with undercover activists, donning what they called Muslim costumes, utilizing fake accents and claiming to beryllium Minnesota voters vouching for the others.
Minnesota's voucher instrumentality is intended to assistance radical who conscionable moved to the authorities vote. It allows a registered elector to vouch that idiosyncratic lives wherever they accidental they do. The instrumentality does not let radical to impersonate existent Minnesota voters.
The video shows O'Keefe, the ousted laminitis of Project Veritas and present of O'Keefe Media Group, falsely identifying himself to predetermination officials arsenic William Pomeranz. CBS News Minnesota spoke to the existent William Pomeranz, who, connected Election Day, kept getting unusual messages.
"I really had a pupil interaction maine that had showed maine what was online astir my individuality being misrepresented. So, that was beauteous overmuch a shock. I recovered retired connected Friday," Pomeranz said.
CBS News Minnesota reported successful August that the group's members did not spell up with voting illegally.
"Kudos to the canvass workers. They reported it afterwards, and frankly, I got to ballot that evening without a problem. So, you know, the voting process, successful my mind, worked," Pomeranz said.
"It's amerciable successful the authorities of Minnesota to impersonate different voter, and this is seemingly what O'Keefe did," David Schultz, a law instrumentality prof astatine Hamline University, said successful August.
In August, Schultz, Pomeranz and Simon said the video shows the strategy worked.
"As I work the law, you can't impersonate different registered voter, and that's precisely what they look to person filmed themselves doing," Simon said astatine the time.
In:
English (US) ·