Auditing Minnesota, book excerpt, intro

The 2022 SOS Campaign

"Unfortunately this is another example, I fear, of disinformation taking root. A generalized feeling or vibe or hunch — and it's probably being stirred up and whipped up by those with a political or financial interest in corroding democracy."

"Any member, regardless of party or any testifier regardless of viewpoint who indulges that kind of recklessness, who tolerates it, who encourages it or even hints at it is, I must say, coating themselves in a shame that will never, ever wash off."

—Star Tribune writer Stephen Montemayor quoting Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon in a 2022 article titled, “False fraud claims push Crow Wing County to another review of the 2020 election: Group of county residents seek new audit of already certified vote” after Simon declined to audit the county’s 2020 election after a 4-1 commissioner vote in favor of an audit

“They always accuse others of what they do. They always blame shift, it's as important to them as breathing, literally. Once they are made to take true responsibility, once they are forced to step into the light, their way of life dies.”

—Nathan, a friend

I was living not far from 38th and Chicago when I learned about the 700,000 missing ballots. It was more than a year after the events on the famous Minneapolis crossroads where the uninviting fist-shaped monument forced the intersection into a roundabout where, slowing the car or bike, one could see, and still can, the bouquets, offerings, religious murals, and feel a bit bewildered about how the city, and the world, was spun into a tizzy. Perhaps the ruckus was why it took me a bit of time to meet Rick Weible and Susan Shogren Smith, who first explained about how the state’s records were off, and that the Secretary of State’s only answer was to tell him his data was unreliable, when in fact it was the state’s own data he was checking. That the government was reluctant to audit itself was one matter but as I dug into it, the problem only seemed to get deeper and more strange. I pondered all this years later, in April 2025, as the clocks were striking thirteen, as a dinner had brought me to a side street in uptown, just north of Lake and Lyndale, where a little store is tucked a few steps below the street,

one of those bookshops easy to miss until you are looking straight at it. It’s called Once Upon a Crime and it focuses exclusively on mystery fiction. It reminded me there was a bit of a story to get straight, even if I would have to approach it at a slant: the direct approach between 2021 and 2025 had seen only marginal gains, which annoyed me many days. On this point my dad and Universe has recently reminded me to be concerned less with results—which cannot be controlled— and more with effort. It turns out that even effort and good intent are not enough, sometimes, if one’s assumptions are incomplete or flat out incorrect. There was a lot Bilbo Baggins didn’t know before Gandalf whisked him out the door on his adventure, and maybe some things he was sure about that were false. And so we begin, in Spring 2022...

See all Ebook stores here. Kindle here. (Paperback coming soon.)

Previous books, including 2025-updated [S]elections in Minnesota here.