SAINT PAUL – On December 17, 2024, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon presided over Minnesota’s 42nd Electoral College Assembly where the state’s ten electors cast their official Electoral College votes for Kamala Harris for president and Tim Walz for vice president of the United States of America. In Minnesota, electors are required by law to vote for the presidential candidate who won the state and to whom they were pledged.
Minnesota’s 10 electors are from the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party and include: Deb Hogenson (District 1), Ken Wilson (District 2), Ardis Wexler (District 3), Andrena Guines (District 4), Elizer Darris (District 5), Corwin (Buzz) Snyder (District 6), Alan Perish (District 7), Joseph Boyle (District 8), The Honorable Mary Murphy (At-Large), and Elvis Rivera (At-Large).
The alternates were David Hansen (District 1), Gregory Davis (District 2), Senator Steven Cwodzinski (District 3), Richard Ottman (District 4), Georgianna Yantos (District 5), Tamara Polzin (District 6), Laurie Driessen (District 7), Christian Taylor-Johnson (District 8), Jeffrey Strand (At-Large), and Kathleen Oganovic (At-Large).
Download photos from the Electoral College Assembly.
Secretary Simon’s Full Remarks:
“Members of the Electoral College:
Welcome, and thanks for your service. You are not only here as witnesses to history. You’re here as a part of history – because you are literally making history. There will be a record of your names and what you did here today for as long as the United States of America exists.
What a difference four years makes. In so many ways, the contrast between 2020 and 2024 is stark.
Four years ago, we were gathered for this ceremony in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic. We faced restrictions of all kinds. In fact, we had to strictly limit attendance at this event in 2020. Very few people other than the ten electors and ten alternates were permitted to attend. On that day, and in the face of those restrictions, we resolved to mourn and remember the lives lost to the pandemic – and to carry on with the work of our democracy. That’s exactly what we did.
Today, in 2024, we face no such public health crisis. We face no formal restrictions on who can attend this ceremony.
Today, 49 other states and the District of Columbia are doing what we are doing here right now.
At this ceremony, Minnesota will officially cast its Electoral College votes for President and Vice President of the United States.
As many of you know, there are 538 electors nationwide. It takes a majority vote of 270 electors to win the presidency. We in Minnesota will cast ten of those electoral votes today.
The Constitution created the Electoral College, but the Constitution is silent as to how each state chooses to allocate its electoral votes. So, states must decide that allocation question for themselves.
Minnesota, long ago, decided to do what 47 other states do: Allocate all the state’s electoral votes to the winner of the statewide popular vote.
But that is a choice. It’s not a constitutional command.
Not all states use this so-called “winner take all” method.
Two states (Maine and Nebraska) allocate their electoral votes according to which candidate wins each congressional district in their state. This allows states to “split” their electoral votes amongst different candidates.
Last year, Minnesota took formal steps to move to a different system. That too, is another key difference between four years ago and today.
Minnesota has now joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact – by which individual states pledge at some time in the future to award their electoral votes to the overall winner of the national popular vote (instead of to the winner of the popular vote in their particular states). The compact only becomes effective when adopted by states whose electoral votes add up to at least 270. So far, eighteen states with a total of 209 electoral votes have joined the compact. So, neither Minnesota nor any other state will be allocating its electoral votes today based on who won the national popular vote. But at some future meeting of the electoral college, an allocation based on the national popular vote winner is now a much more likely than it was just four years ago.
Of course, today’s event will hasten a transition of power in our country.
That transition is also a contrast between today and four years ago.
The longstanding tradition in America is that the transition of power from president to president has been peaceful, orderly, and accepted by the American people.
In 2020, we faced dangerous challenges to that tradition. Through dishonest schemes in the courts, through attempts to submit false slates of presidential electors, and through an attack on the U.S. Capitol, some who disliked the outcome of that election attempted somehow to reverse the result. It was an ugly episode in the life of our country; one that should never be repeated.
This year, at least so far, we face none of the challenges to the transition of power that we saw four years ago in 2020. There has been relative calm; an apparent consensus that the election of 2024 was fundamentally fair, accurate, honest, and secure.
The 2024 election in Minnesota was also more inclusive than in 2020 in one critical respect: Minnesota restored the freedom to vote to over 55,000 people who have left prison behind.
This meeting of the Electoral College, in Minnesota and in all other U.S. jurisdictions, will be the latest verification and validation that democracy worked in America in 2024.
With that in mind, we should recognize some of the heroes of this past election: The local election officials and poll workers across Minnesota who put in hard work – and delivered a stable election period with skill and precision. And the voters of Minnesota, who expressed their confidence in our election system by showing up in huge numbers.
So now is the time to celebrate not a specific candidate-based outcome, but a larger and greater outcome: The endurance of American democracy. We dare not ever take that for granted.
President Franklin Roosevelt once said “Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.”
He was right. The rulers of our democracy are the people. Their voices must control. And you, as members of the Electoral College, will lead us today in being their voice in Minnesota.
The world has changed since 2020. Now, in 2024, we face different challenges. But this process remains the same. It provides continuity and stability. You, electors and alternates, are at its center. We honor you. And future generations of Americans will be grateful to you.
Thank you.”
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