Minnesota Presidential Electors, 2024

Yes, we do this every cycle.

Minnesota Electoral College Assembly, 2020 (YouTube)

When you vote for a presidential candidate, you are not actually casting a vote for that candidate. You are voting for a slate of presidential electors who (at least officially) support that candidate. Months before the presidential election, each presidential candidate registers his or her slate of electors with the state. If “Kamala D. Harris” is marked on more Minnesota ballots than “Donald J. Trump,” it doesn’t technically contribute to Harris’s election as President; all it means is that the slate of Harris’s electors has won their election. They will be certified by the Secretary of State and the Governor (some time between mid-November and December 11th) and they will get to serve as Minnesota’s presidential electors.

The winning electors meet at the state capitol on December 17th, 2024, and they vote for President and Vice-President of the United States. The Constitution itself doesn’t care how they vote at this point. If one of the Harris electors shows up and votes for Josh Shapiro instead, the Constitution doesn’t mind. The Constitution imagined that state chapters of the electoral college would function as independent deliberative bodies, and that each elector would come into the electoral college with an open mind. However, the Founders’ plan failed immediately and catastrophically, for reasons De Civitate explored at fascinating length earlier this year:

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We’ve been living under a jury-rigged electoral system held together by good luck and chicken wire ever since. Some thirty-eight states, including my own Minnesota, have now passed laws to guarantee that the electors are mere functionaries, literally incapable of doing anything other than what the popular mob demands. Some states impose fines or criminal penalties on so-called “faithless” electors, and all of them deliberately do a great deal (like giving candidates direct control over their selection) to ensure that electors obey the mob. In 2020, the Supreme Court upheld these frustrating laws (and they were correct to do so), because, although these laws clearly violate the spirit of the Constitution, they do comply with its letter. As a result, our presidential electors are essentially functionaries, legally barred from casting a free vote (mostly) and too hollowed out by partisan loyalty to do so if they could.

The electors then send their votes off to Congress to be opened and counted. In the 2020 version of this post, I had to explain at this point what “January 6” was, but, ha ha, one good thing about the 2020 election is that now every American knows about January 6! Big win for civics!

Even though the system does everything it can to make the electors pointless, it still seems weird that most Americans have no clue who their electors are. These are the people you’re actually voting for, technically! You should know them! There’s even a possibility—though a very faint one—that their judgment will matter tremendously: if a president-elect dies before the electoral college votes, many states free their electors from their pledge.¹ This would place the onus back on the electors to decide on a new president-elect.²

So let’s get to know them, eh?

Every four years, the week before Election Day, I write to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office to ask for the list of electors—which, historically, they don’t even publish.³ Every four years, the inestimable Stella Hegg replies to my inquiry within hours, which I can’t imagine how she does it given everything that must be going on at the MNSoS office this week, but I thank her very much for it.⁴

Then, I post the lists on this here blogletter. Here’s De Civitate’s list of 2016 electors. Here’s our list of 2020 electors. And here’s our list of 2024 electors:

Democratic-Farmer-Labor Electors (Harris)

1. Deb Hogenson⁵

2. Ken Wilson

3. Ardis Wexler

4. Andrena Guines

5. Elizer Darris

6. Corwin “Buzz” Snyder

7. Alan Perish

8. Joseph Boyle

9. Mary Murphy

10. Elvis Rivera

Alternates:

1. David Hansen

2. Gregory Davis

3. Steven Cwodzinski

4. Richard Ottman

5. Georgianna Yantos

6. Tamara Polzin

7. Laurie Driessen

8. Christian Taylor-Johnson

9. Jeffrey Strand

10. Kathleen Oganovic

Republican Electors (Trump)

1. Aaron Eberhart

2. Joseph Ditto⁶

3. Ellen Cousins

4. Jim Carson

5. Patty Mesenbrink

6. Eric Lucero

7. Steve Wenzel⁷

8. Cynthia Kleven

9. Michael Cummins

10. Michael Casey

Alternates:

1. Greg Bartz

2. Natalie Barnes

3. Josh Coburn

4. John Rheinberger

5. Mitchell Rossow

6. Sam Adeji

7. Jim Bobier

8. Charlene Gafkjen

9. Brien Martin

10. Thomas G. Polachek

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…and, no, I don’t know why the major parties didn’t submit their elector names in alphabetical order this cycle. Pretty sure they did last cycle, because I’ll never forget the first name on the 2020 DFL list: the clearly alphabetical Melvin Aanerud. (Remember, kids, Melvin Aanerud did nothing wrong!⁸)

Looking through these names and their limited biographies, they are an interesting mix of people, aren’t they? One does wonder what they might do if allowed to deliberate about the best candidate and vote their consciences. Alas.

I’m not linking biographies for the minor parties, though.

Libertarian Electors (Chase Oliver)

1. Rebecca Whiting

2. George "Chip" Tangen

3. Joey Gamache

4. Harrison Hicks

5. T. J. Hawthorne

6. Tobias Leonard

7. Ahmed AlRwazek

8. Mary O'Connor

9. Jake Dahle

10. Brian Paulson

Alternates:

1. Eric Thraen

2. Charles Kuchlenz

3. Anita Marie Hansen

4. Robert “Bob” Odden

5. Jason Klietz

6. Rhea Schmitt

7. William Sorenson

8. Dan Garscia

9. Jeremy Peichel

10. James Arthur Hansen

Green Party Electors (Jill Stein)

1. Undrea Patterson

2. Wissam Balshe

3. Danene Provencher

4. Scott Bol

5. Samantha Pree-Stinson

6. Megan Kuhl-Stennes

7. Dave Bicking

8. Katharine Pitney

9. Adam Schneider

10. Carol Mellom

Alternates:

1. Seth Kuhl-Stennes

2. Timothy Jordan

3. Cameron Gordon

4. Ralph Overholt

5. Thomas Dunnwald

6. David Strand

7. Devin Kasprowicz

8. Victoria López

9. Diane Peterson

10. Eric Oines

We the People Electors (RFK, Jr.)

Yep, he’s still on the ballot!

1. Mark Blaxill

2. Sarah Bridges

3. Patricia Carroll

4. Drew Dietle

5. Mark Frascone

6. Jeanne Hamm

7. Jennifer Vanderhorst-Larson

8. Peter Nickitas

9. Wayne Rohde

10. Victor Toso

Alternates:

1. Cody Abel

2. Robert Carter

3. Diana Clarke-Carter

4. Lizbeth Getman

5. Michelle Heerey

6. Logan Kammerer

7. Beth Kessler

8. Virginia Ryan

9. Lori Schneiderhan

10. Kari Wenger

Socialism and Liberation Electors (Claudia de La Cruz)

1. Riecher Denmark

2. John Reuss

3. Madeline Hermann

4. Nathan Riddle

5. James Elli

6. Jasmine Warren

7. Samuel Reichert

8. Simon Elliott

9. Kade Robb

10. Carolyn Hockey

Alternates:

1. Melanie Denmark

2. William Norton

3. James Dugan

4. Elizabeth Bushard

5. Eric Rodgers

6. Jayde Warren

7. Elizabeth Kramm

8. Naomi Li

9. Michael Reuss

10. Samantha Asplund

Socialist Workers Party (Rachele Fruit)

I always imagine that the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialism & Liberation Party are locked in some kind of People’s Front of Judea / Judean People’s Front death struggle.

1. Edwin Fruit

2. Gabrielle Prosser

3. Helen Meyers

4. Joanne Murphy

5. Kevin Dwire

6. Rose Engstrom

7. Martin Knaeble

8. Jennifer Benton

9. Kathleen Wheeler

10. Jeri Mullan

Alternates:

1. Michael Neterval

2. Natalie Morrison

3. Emory Dietrich

4. Douglas Nelson

5. Mary Martin

6. Paul Pederson

7. David Lee

8. Kyle Edwards

9. August Nimtz

10. John Severs

Justice For All Electors (Cornel West)

This is Robert George’s progressive friend’s political campaign. I guess many people know Cornel West in his own right, but, I confess, I only think of him as “Robert George’s friend.” I guess that shows that, try as I might, I do have a bubble!

1. Jason Keppe

2. Lennon Baker

3. Matthew Thiede

4. Kirubele Adbebe

5. Diane Haugesag

6. Ray J. Garner, Sr.

7. Russell Brown

8. Austin Heald

9. Nick Shillingford

10. Avery Wikstrom

Alternates:

1. Ryan West

2. Dylan Schofield

3. Josh Godar

4. Jessica Lee

5. Paul Sojos

6. Eric Oines

7. Zach Czaia

8. John Vickrey

9. Jordan Powell Karis

10. Kevan Bohan

“Independent” Electors (Shiva Ayyadurai)

Okay, you got me. I’ve heard of all the other candidates, or at least their parties in Rachele’s Fruit’s case… but I have no clue who this Shiva guy is or what his deal is. It goes to show just how microscopically insignificant my American Solidarity Party is when even these guys—whoever they are—can hit the threshold to get on the ballot, while the ASP cannot.

A quick Google search reveals that Shiva Ayyadurai is not even eligible to the office of the presidency, because he is not a natural-born citizen! (He was born in India.) However, since nobody challenged him in Minnesota, he made it to the ballot anyway. Indeed, under the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Trump v. Anderson, it is unclear that Minnesota has the right to exclude Ayyadurai from the ballot anyway. What an imbecilic unanimous ruling that was.

But I digress. Here are his electors, all of whom, in my view, violated the Constitution by legally pledging their votes to an ineligible candidate:

1. Jeremiah Thomas Kornder

2. Hunter James Day

3. Colette Carla Backstrand

4. Kurt Alan Indermaur

5. Quinn Michael Day

6. Gerald Arnold Bischoff

7. Debrah Kay Bischoff

8. Margaret Mary Fawcett

9. Timothy G Cameron

10. Richard Arthur Voigt

Alternates:

1. Emily Megan Deitering

2. Maria Sandra Day

3. Laura Faye Wang

4. Linda Marie Matthews

5. Cassandra Lee Studanski

6. Robert Henry Zollner

7. Shari Marie Sell

8. Alainna Frances Kaplan

9. April Mae Williams

10. Aaron Maurice Graves

American Solidarity Electors (Peter Sonski)

As I’ve previously disclosed, this “Christian Democracy” party is the ticket I’m voting for this year… for the third presidential election in a row. Shameless plug: you can check their candidate out at PeterSonski.com. Is he perfect? Far from it. Does he have enough experience in public life to be President? Of course not. (Although Sonski has more political experience than Trump did in 2016!) Can I vote for him without betraying myself, my country, or my God? Yep. That will have to be enough.

Because this is a write-in campaign (Sonski is not on the ballot), Minnesota law does not require Sonski to have a full slate of 10 electors and 10 alternates. Sonski only needs 1 elector to qualify for a write-in campaign.⁹ That’s good news for the ASP, because I have direct knowledge that the ASP tried to get a full slate in Minnesota, but failed.

I was understandably very curious which single elector the party would choose for the honor of being our token single write-in elector—my money was on my friend Mike—but that isn’t the route they picked. The Secretary of State informs me that here is the official list the ASP submitted:

1. Angela Harder

2. Amy Sue Anderson

3. James Heaney

4. Martha Heaney

5. Stephen Heaney

6. Anne Heaney

Yes, that’s me and three of my family members. (My friend Mike’s pledge to serve as an elector must have gotten lost in the mail, I guess!) I did sign a pledge when ASP was pushing for a full slate, but I figured nothing would come of it once the full slate failed.

You can tell it’s a messy party because I resigned rather publicly from the ASP seven years ago, yet here I am, recruiting two-thirds of our electors. The party did very kindly send me a magnet for my assistance, and it’s a decent magnet. Holds a few sheets. Better than most fridge magnets these days.

Anyway, that’s all! It’s possible there are other write-in candidates who have other electors that I did not list here, because I did not ask. Quite frankly, after putting Stella and Paul to this much work, I don’t want to bother either of them again for another four years.

Back in 2028?

I started doing this every four years partly as an excuse to rant about the electoral college, but mainly because the information seemed important to me, yet it wasn’t public.

This year, I am happy to report, the Secretary of State has started publishing the presidential elector lists for the Republican and Democratic Parties online! They’re in an obscure corner of the website no human would ever find,¹⁰ but they’re there, technically. The published documents even include a lot of cool bonuses, like the actual signed pledges each elector had to make, and the signed documents from the candidates themselves accepting the nomination and stating how their names should be printed on the ballot! Here they are:

Presidential and Vice-Presidential Certificate of Nomination (DFL)

Presidential and Vice-Presidential Certificate of Nomination (GOP)

So, will I still need to carry on this idiosyncratic tradition again in 2028? I dunno! We’ll see!¹¹

1. Minnesota does not free its electors from their pledge, even if the pledged candidate dies. At least, I couldn’t find anything… and I spent a lot of time worrying about this sort of thing about a year ago, so I’d probably remember if there was anything.

Minnesota law simply demands that the electors “execute their pledge,” which seems to me to be an impossible demand if the pledged candidate is dead. A conscientious secretary of state might be trapped in a doom loop, voiding all electoral votes cast, replacing electors one after another, by the hundreds and the thousands, until the state legislature finally met to fix this apparent oversight in Minnesota law.

2. Because of the elector-coordination problem discussed at length in “This Is No Way To Elect a President,” electors in that situation would likely take direction from their national party. However, they would, presumably, have some say in what the national party directs—especially since nothing necessarily compels them to follow the instructions of their national party!

3. They changed that practice this year, as I’ll discuss at the end of the article.

4. This year, I am told, I must thank “Paul” (no last name given) from the “Elections Department” for compiling the minor-party lists for me. Thanks, Paul!

5. I remind you that Minnesota doesn’t have a “Democratic Party of Minnesota,” technically. Our state Democratic Party apparatus is actually the result of a 1944 merger between the Democratic Party of Minnesota and the Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota, which was growing powerful at the time. Personally, I think the entire country should do this, because we Minnesotans have convenient three-letter acronyms for both major parties: GOP and DFL. The rest of you have to struggle with GOP and… “DEM”? It’s stupid. Ours is good. Rename the national Democratic Party!

6. Ballotpedia says it couldn’t determine to whom Ditto was bound at the 2016 RNC, which is fair. I don’t have Ditto listed in my old 2016 Delegate Loyalty Tracker (remember that?!). As one of the unknown District 2 delegates, he could have been bound to Cruz, Rubio, or Trump. However, delegate bindings had little to do with delegate loyalty that year, and nearly the entire Minnesota delegation in 2016 was anti-Trump during the primary.

7. Ha ha, Wenzel is in my old 2016 Delegate Loyalty Tracker! He’s a former DFL state legislator of 30 years who did everything in his power to stop Trump in 2016. Good for him. I suppose that, if he still has any power in the party, he’s probably ashamed of that episode now and tries to suppress it, but oh well he did good that time.

8. If De Civitate ever opens a swag store, that’s going to be on one of our shirts.

I recently found out that the real-life Melvin Aanerud is a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend. When I cryptically said, “Melvin Aanerud did nothing wrong” in the context of an argument about the 2020 election, my friend became extremely confused about my relationship to “Mel.”

9. Under Minnesota law, in the impossible event that the write-in actually wins, that single elector gets to choose the other 9 electors, under the Secretary of State’s supervision. Although even that isn’t quite accurate; it’s actually wicked complicated how the empty write-in electoral slate bootstraps itself under Minnesota law.

10. Go to “Search for Official Documents,” set Type to “Election,” use dates in 2024, search “presidential” in the description, and then scroll results until you find the “Certificates of Nomination,” which include the electors.

11. It might depend on whether the inestimable Stella Hegg retires!