A Minnesota election official went on Somali TV and walked all the illiterate viewers through exactly how to show up and vote, including same-day registration options, and somehow never got around to mentioning that you actually have to be a U.S. citizen to do any of it.
Minnesota Voter Outreach Director Melanie Hazelip appeared in the clip explaining the basics. “If you’re already registered to vote, you don’t need to bring anything with you,” she said. You just show up to your early voting location, which is usually the county office or City Hall.” She then explained same-day registration for those who aren’t registered, saying a Minnesota ID is all someone needs. What she never said, not once, is that voting requires citizenship.
The video blew up after conservative account End Wokeness posted it, racking up three quarters of a million views. That’s a lot of eyeballs on a clip that was supposed to be routine voter outreach but ended up looking like a how-to guide with a very important page missing. Minnesota election outreach video controversy spread fast across conservative X accounts, and it’s not hard to see why.
Retired Navy intelligence officer Phillip C. Parrish laid out exactly why people were alarmed. “Minnesota hands out those IDs to non-citizens with no citizenship marking,” he wrote on X. He noted that under Minnesota law, a single registered voter can vouch for up to eight others for same-day registration with just an oath, and that citizenship is required by law but “real-time proof is not.” His conclusion: “Affirm you’re a citizen. Cast the vote. Get investigated later, if at all. This is how the system is built. It is not an accident.”
That ID issue is a real one. Governor Tim Walz signed a law in 2023 giving driver’s licenses to all residents regardless of immigration status, and those licenses carry no marking indicating the holder is not a citizen, even though they’re routinely used to register to vote. So a noncitizen can get a Minnesota ID, walk into a polling place, swear an oath, and vote. If they sign as Mickey Mouse, as policy fellow Bill Glahn put it, nobody’s going to find them. It’s like murder’s illegal, but it happens all the time,” Glahn told Fox News Digital.
With an average IQ of like 60-something, aren't the all illiterate at this point?
That alone should ban them from voting, not to mention the fact most of them are probably illegals.
— Frank (@drastic215x) October 30, 2026
Federalist Society co-founder David McIntosh didn’t mince words. “Democrats are on a mission to tell every noncitizen how they can get away with voting in our elections,” he wrote on X. How is this not election interference?” Riley Gaines of Outkick called it a reason to pass the SAVE America Act. Hard to argue.
The Minnesota Secretary of State’s office told Fox News Digital that Hazelip “provided accurate information about Minnesota election laws” and that her remarks were “misinterpreted and misrepresented by political actors online.” Which is a very fancy way of saying the official said nothing false, she just left out the part that matters most. Glahn agreed the information was technically accurate but said, given the timing and the audience, “she really should have emphasized the need to be an American citizen in order to vote.”
This is all happening in the same state that lost hundreds of millions of dollars to documented fraud in childcare, nutrition, and Medicaid programs, much of it tied to the same community Hazelip was addressing. With Election Day closing in fast, expect this video to keep circulating, and expect Minnesota Democrats to keep calling everyone who shares it a conspiracy theorist, right up until the ballots are counted.
This should never be allowed in our country.
