Tom Emmer (@GOPMajorityWhip) called this an economic "golden age" in January — then championed a war that sent gas and prices climbing.
This week, a tax-cut victory lap: "96% of filers… earned under $200,000."
So I itemized it for a median MN-06 household — the cut, vs. what it actually cost. The two numbers are closer than his tweet lets on.
mn06watch.substack.com/p/the-golden-a…
Sen. Lee — “roughly 30 million” noncitizens registering and voting is a number bigger than every noncitizen in the country.
1. The entire noncitizen population — green-card holders, student and work visas, and undocumented, all of it — is about 24 million (Immigration Research Initiative; Pew). “30 million” overshoots the whole category by six million people.
2. Almost none of them can legally register. Noncitizen voting has been a federal felony since 1996 (IIRIRA), with deportation attached.
3. When states audit for it, they get single digits. Utah checked 2M+ records → 1 noncitizen registration, 0 votes cast. Heritage’s own database: under 100 cases in 20+ years.
The move is a population-to-participation swap: name a big number of people who exist, describe them as people who register and vote, and let the reader connect two figures that have nothing to do with each other.
Showing Utah because, you know, it’s the state you represent.
UPDATE: I asked Doug Chapin — the DFL's MN-06 candidate and a national election-administration expert — for his read on the Duluth clicker failure.
On the record: "'Real' elections in Minnesota are done on paper ballots, which can be reviewed and audited after the fact. Electronic systems used in both Rochester and Duluth do not have the same security features that we use in the state of Minnesota."
Both conventions ran on electronic systems. Neither is how the state runs a real election.
@ChapinForMN6
The Minnesota GOP spent Saturday in Duluth unable to count its own votes.
Ten ballots. A multi-hour delay. Delegates on the floor of the self-described "party of election integrity" arguing they couldn't certify the result — because the electronic "clickers" failed.
Here's the part worth getting straight before someone spins it: those clickers are rented audience-response keypads. They are not what Minnesota uses to run an election. The state already votes on hand-marked paper ballots, counted by scanners that are never online, and audited by hand after every election.
A convention gadget broke. Your ballot is paper. Those aren't the same story — and one is an argument for the system we already have.
Today in MN-06 Watch — what broke in Duluth, what didn't, and why the 6th District's challenger happens to be a national election-administration expert: mn06watch.substack.com/p/a-clicker-is…
@BasedMikeLee Which of these five questions is the bad one?
A sitting U.S. Senator wants you to believe that asking where information comes from is a censorship plot.
The only reason to talk people out of checking sources is if you’d rather they didn’t check yours.
Let's be precise, because that is the whole point here. An original ballot counts ONLY if BOTH are true:
1. No replacement ballot was returned, AND
2. It's the correct party ballot for that voter's registration.
If either one of these conditions aren’t met, it doesn't count.
Return the replacement → the replacement counts.
Return a wrong-party original → its party contests can't count, because that ballot was voided in the system.
So "the first ballot will count if no replacement comes in" is half the rule. The other half is "and only if it was the correct ballot." Both conditions, every voter, every time.
Real election integrity means telling voters exactly how their ballot is handled — both conditions, not half of them.
The quote dropped one word that changes everything. DeMarinis: “we will count that ballot if it’s the correct ballot.” Not “would be counted” — if it’s correct.
And “correct” is easy to verify. The error was party only — no county or district was affected. So the state just checks the returned ballot against your party registration. Democrat/Democratic ballot or Republican/Republican ballot = counts.
Now the part the “it gets worse” crowd skips: how they stop anyone from voting twice.
Your return envelope has a barcode tied to your voter ID. When your ballot comes in, that barcode is scanned into the state system and your record flips to “received.” One tracking number per voter — the system won’t accept two.
When the replacements went out, the state VOIDED every original in that same system. A voided original can’t be received for canvassing. So if you mail back both, the original is dead on arrival and only the replacement counts. Return only the original (and it’s correct)? It counts. Either way: one ballot, one voter.
And the barcode is on the ENVELOPE, not the ballot — so secrecy holds. They verify it’s you before the secret ballot is ever separated out.
This isn’t improvised. One-ballot-per-voter has been Maryland law for years (COMAR 33.11.05.04). The vendor error is real and worth answering for. “They’re counting illegal ballots” is not — it’s backwards.
Quote: thedailyrecord.com/2026/05/28/bal…
How the envelope codes work (state’s own page): elections.maryland.gov/press_room/doc…
Mike Lindell’s campaign for governor spent nearly $190,000 — more than half of everything he raised in his first two weeks — buying copies of his own memoir from his own company. (Minnesota Campaign Finance Board data, via the Minnesota Reformer.)
He’s in plenty of company. Trump’s 2016 campaign spent $55,055 bulk-buying his book. Gavin Newsom’s PAC dropped $1.5 million on his memoir this year. Cain, Cruz, Carson — both parties, same move.
The FEC allows it, with one catch: the candidate has to forgo the royalties. Otherwise it’s donor money converted to personal use.
Which is the real question for Lindell. He’s not buying from a bookstore — he’s buying from MyPillow, the company he owns. For a guy whose entire brand is rooting out fraud, “where does the money go?” is a fair one to ask.
minnesotareformer.com/2026/02/03/mik…
On CNBC last Friday, House Majority Whip @tomemmer explained his job:
"You take care of the people at home first. There's nobody in Washington DC that cast a vote for you, so you take care of those people. You're their voice."
The seven days that followed:
- 6 national TV/radio hits — CNBC, Fox & Friends, Scott Jennings, Sid Rosenberg, Brian Kilmeade, Maria Bartiromo
- 0 documented in-district events
- 0 Memorial Day appearances in MN-06 we could find
- 1 floor vote his own leadership brought up — and lost
- 1,023 days since his last in-person town hall
Both of his 2026 challengers — DFL-endorsed @ChapinForMN6 (who officially filed Wednesday) and Marine veteran @MikeFoley4REAL — were in the district.
He was in Manhattan, sitting for back-to-back hits the morning after Memorial Day.
The standard is his. The receipts are his.
Full week, including the fact-check on the "86% Somali" line that doesn't add up the way he tells it:
mn06watch.substack.com/p/you-take-car…#MN06#ReceiptsNotRage
Read the opinion you screenshotted. The judge didn't rule "in favor" of the order — he denied the injunction because "no agency has yet acted… they have not suffered any harm." That's a ripeness call, not a merits win. He even told plaintiffs they may "renew their motions" once USPS or DHS act. Receipts attached — yours.
Posted a sourced breakdown — Georgia's GOP SoS, Utah's GOP Lt. Gov., federal court record. Reply was "MN morons" and an instant block, so I couldn't respond. That's the tell: when the answer to data is to make sure you can't hear it, that's not a disagreement, that's an echo chamber.
(He cited Michigan, by the way — which audited 7.9M records and found the same near-zero rate.)
Two things. One: the audits use the same federal databases (USCIS, SSA, Driver Services) that detect noncitizen ID misuse in every other context. If the method works for catching the identity theft you’re describing elsewhere, it works here. You can’t say the detection is reliable for X but blind to voting.
Two: the risk/reward isn’t comparable. Identity theft for financial gain scales — the payoff is real.
Identity theft to cast one vote = felony, deportation, permanent bar from citizenship, in exchange for one ballot in a million-ballot election.
Raffensperger’s own COO said this on the record: “very high risk, very low reward.” That’s why the number isn’t an assumption — it’s the rate when you actually go look. If you think humans don’t weigh risk/reward, I don’t know what to tell you.
Mail ballots get signature-verified against your registration, and the system flags duplicate submissions. That’s the part the joke skips. But sounds like a fun trip.
I have said multiple times, I support Voter ID. But it’s important to get the facts right on the systems you’re criticizing.
On “absence of evidence” — fair as a maxim, but it doesn’t apply here.
We’re not arguing from a blank. The audits found noncitizens: 20 in Georgia, one in Utah.
That’s a positive result from going and looking — a measured rate, not “we saw nothing so we assume nothing.”
The evidence is present; it’s just small.
Fine — let’s say you’re right that Raffensperger’s not reputable. Grant it. The methodology still stands on its own:
• All 8.2M registrations cross-matched against three independent systems: county court records, GA Driver Services, and the federal USCIS citizenship database
• The noncitizens were confirmed by their own jury-duty declarations — they told a court, under a separate legal process, they weren’t citizens
• All removed, referred for prosecution; 156 more flagged for review
You don’t have to trust the man to check the method — it’s federal databases and self-declarations, not his opinion. That’s the point of showing the work.
Result: 20 in 8.2M, about 1 in 400,000.
Source (ABC): abcnews.go.com/US/georgia-vot…
@Tgifeveryone@BasedMikeLee Literally every portion is primary sourced. Please feel free to bring counter points though. If there’s something factually incorrect, I will correct it.
“No enforcement”? Orange County reviewed its rolls and found 17 ineligible registrations over five years — out of 1.9 million voters. The county cancelled all of them and referred the one prosecutable case to the DA. (Note: the DOJ’s own lawsuit there doesn’t even allege anyone voted illegally — it’s a fight over redacted SSNs.)
And California runs the same system Utah does: ballots mailed to every voter, same-day registration, automatic registration at the DMV. Utah’s deep-red and Republican-run — it audited 2.1M voters and found one noncitizen. Same mechanics, same near-zero result.
So “it’d be different in California” comes down to red state vs. blue state. The system’s identical and the data lands in the same place. The party isn’t the variable — the rarity is.
This was a reply to Mike Lee’s post, and his argument was specifically about noncitizen voting “diluting” the vote — so that’s what the graphic answers. On that question, the audit data is the answer.
The bill does also add in-person photo ID and mail-ballot ID rules, sure. But those are the same citizenship-verification goal, not a separate fraud crackdown — and they’re not what Lee was claiming the bill is for.
Sources are on the graphic: Georgia’s Republican SoS, Utah’s Republican Lt. Gov., Kansas court record.
48 Followers 3K FollowingHusband, father, Memento Mori | Columnist @ Townhallcom | Political analysis & research | "The Minnesota guy with the receipts"
25 Followers 509 FollowingModel Attribute: Optimistic, cheerful, curious about new things, independent-minded, financially independent, not dependent on others, self-reliant, caring
6K Followers 5K Following“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” John 8:32 #FreeSpeech 1A,2A. Support TEAM Trump. Peace is the Prize. Protect the children.
65 Followers 79 FollowingWorking man. Father. Farmer. Running Republican in CD-8 to ban stock trading, end lobbying corruption and impose term limits. No PAC's. No lobbyists. Just you.
300 Followers 1K FollowingChrist Follower, wife & mom of 3. “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” 1 John 1:6
46 Followers 315 Following"...because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." -Romans 10:9
238 Followers 684 FollowingLauren Boebert for Congress: CO-04 Congresswoman, Mom & Gigi with a fierce love for liberty. Sent to DRAIN THE SWAMP drier than a CO irrigation ditch in July.
3K Followers 3K FollowingPublic schools lover. Take the word hate out of your mouth, you'll feel better. Sometimes salty. No DMs unless you want to give me 💵 to do nothing. 🇳🇱 🇺🇸
577 Followers 502 FollowingTrump’s use of the Presidency is to expand his personal wealth, and surround himself with “ Yes Men and Women” which will undermine the security of the US.
2K Followers 925 FollowingExecutive Director @OurWisconsinRev - Host @TownCallWI - Bernie Sanders national delegate- Young @pdamerica- Authority comes from the consent of the governed
6K Followers 689 FollowingChair of Wisconsin Elections Commission & I have opinions on election things, Personal Injury Attorney & I have law opinions, Posts are my own & I enjoy them.
166 Followers 371 FollowingGovernor Candidate, CHRISTIAN 🙏, FIGHTING FOR CHILDREN & JUSTICE ⚖️ MAKE MINNESOTA MINNESOTA AGAIN!!!
https://t.co/kKX0rCf1Ur
301 Followers 128 FollowingVolunteer, independent/libertarian. Fanatic for voting method and electoral reform. Prefer approval or score voting; not a fan of RCV. Abolish sore loser laws.
23K Followers 1K FollowingFounder/President of Shepherds Works, Proud Black Gun Owner/ Reverend/ Husband/ Father/ Grandfather/youth minister. Go Pack Go 🇺🇸
6K Followers 689 FollowingChair of Wisconsin Elections Commission & I have opinions on election things, Personal Injury Attorney & I have law opinions, Posts are my own & I enjoy them.
2K Followers 925 FollowingExecutive Director @OurWisconsinRev - Host @TownCallWI - Bernie Sanders national delegate- Young @pdamerica- Authority comes from the consent of the governed
2K Followers 3K FollowingCounselor/Therapist/Dad. St. Cloud Area ISD #742 School Board Member. I do mental health work in the jail system. This is my personal account.
4K Followers 927 FollowingWriter, producer, director - thirtysomething, Last Samurai, My So-Called Life, Dangerous Beauty. Let's build a future for our children - and their children.
15K Followers 2K FollowingGen X from #IN05: Country over corporations. Break monopolies. Ban junk fees. End dark money. Same rules for everyone. https://t.co/lRL6vi9zOe
318K Followers 1K FollowingNew York Times columnist, visiting professor @lipscomb, Iraq vet, married to @NancyAFrench. This is a Memphis Grizzlies fan account.
375K Followers 753 FollowingHost & exec prod, @talkingfedspod. FCA Lawyer. Teach con law at UCSD& UCLA. Senior Fellow USC. Former US Atty, Dep Assis AG. Former LATimes Columnist.
249K Followers 11K FollowingPrincipal @LincolnSquare, Sr. Adv. @ProjectLincoln, author. Enjoy endurance events, though I do them badly. Same handle on https://t.co/4d0IUAXbZW and Bluesky.
175K Followers 7K FollowingIt's me. Hi, I'm the problem, it's me.
Your friendly neighborhood Cassandra
My opinions, who else's would they be? (I stole this one)
235K Followers 362 FollowingPolitical analysis and reporting free of tribal prejudices. Subscribe here: https://t.co/KDejWa49D9 and send us tips https://t.co/k4QsKoQ23a
15K Followers 776 FollowingThe trusted voice of Minnesota's Gun Owners to defend and restore the right to keep and bear arms. Tweets are from our staff. Contact us at [email protected]
1K Followers 857 FollowingThe MBA is a united voice that promotes and advocates for broadcasting by representing the radio and television industry and their related platforms.
323 Followers 563 FollowingHusband, Father, Grandfather, and Veteran! I believe in Common Sense Leadership, Transparency, and Accountability. Independent Candidate for MN State Auditor
530 Followers 303 FollowingA weekly podcast hosted by @mbrodkorb and @aleryrl that breaks down politics, policies, and current events with unique and fresh perspectives.
146K Followers 836 FollowingCandidate for Minnesota State Auditor. Dad, husband, long-time family physician, and former Minnesota State Senator for Carver County.
9K Followers 10K FollowingPolitical Science and History Degree from @umnews - @minnesotalynx & @timberwolves fan - Moderate Democrat, Paralegal, Avid Study of Presidential History
66 Followers 21 FollowingHusband, Father, Veteran, Engineer, & Lifelong Minnesotan. Tired of career politicians with no integrity. Vote August 11th, Republican ballot, to unseat Emmer.
7K Followers 3K FollowingEditor in chief, @MNReformer. Contact me if you wanna write for us. DMs open. Formerly @StarTribune, @LasVegasSun, @UMWallaceHouse. Go Irish.