Guest Opinion

By Robert L Herbst 

Pay Attention to Minnesota’s Secretary of State Race – Kim Crockett is a National Security Threat and a Clear and Present Danger to Our Democracy

I am not a partisan. I served my country as Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Senior Executive with the Tennessee Valley Authority, Chairman of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, United States Board member of the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe serving both republican and democratic presidents. I write to you today not as a democrat, or as a republican, but as a fellow American and Minnesotan.

I served as your first Department of Natural Resources Commissioner pulling together Minnesota Parks, Forests, Soil and Waters and Game and Fish after serving as Deputy Director of Conservation for governors of both parties.

We have a clear and present danger to our democracy right here in Minnesota. I’m not exaggerating. It exists in the form of one candidate running for statewide office. The Secretary of the State of Minnesota is an elected position most of us have never even thought about. Well, we need to think about it now. The Secretary of State is the person responsible for overseeing and counting our state’s votes in 2024, a presidential election year, and unlike previous citizens who have held this position, one of the nominees is threatening to tamper with the votes of Minnesota’s citizens. You heard that right.

Can you imagine what would happen if the overseer of Minnesota’s election just threw out your vote? Our country, democracy would be rocked to its core. And yet, that’s exactly what election denier and extremist Kim Crockett is saying she would do. Think this can’t happen in America? It’s already been attempted. In 2020, former President Trump told the Secretary of the State of Georgia to “find” 11,780 additional votes. It’s on tape! And now we have a candidate here in Minnesota who is running on the premise that she would have found those nonexistent votes for Trump, thereby corrupting our elections. To this day, she maintains without a shred of evidence that the 2020 election was rigged and that she would not have certified your vote! Ms. Crockett calls the 2020 election “the big rig” and likens it to the September 11th attacks! Ms. Crockett is an extremist who is more loyal to one man than she is to Minnesota and to our country.

Changing the count on a legitimate election would compromise the very integrity of our system, the very core of what I and countless other public servants and veterans have fought (some giving their lives) to defend. Make no mistake, the most serious threat to our democracy is right here in Minnesota. We, the people of Minnesota, must not allow this person with no integrity to oversee our elections. If you make one vote in this 2022 cycle, whether you are democrat, republican or independent, make sure it’s for Steve Simon. Our democracy is at stake. As a Minnesotan, as someone who spent my entire adult life protecting Americas natural resources, I beg you to take seriously this national security threat. You can be active in defending our democracy by talking to your friends and neighbors about this threat and, by all means, vote.