Simon's Sensors: The Secret of the iPads: AUDITING MN, #2

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INTRODUCTION - Discovering a Quiet Ritual

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Throughout early 2025, there was a kind of religious dedication to electronic poll pads, especially those from a shell company called KNOWiNK—named the fastest growing private business in St. Louis Business Journal in 2021—itself sprouted out of thin air by Scott Leiendecker. One could reasonably ask, Was it even his software?

In Minnesota, there was an almost ritualistic use on each voting day in most of the counties and a new wave of rollouts had begun in 2022 (Hennepin County) to replace previous purchases and go for maximum coverage across as many of Minnesota’s 87 counties as possible. I personally caught up with the story at the end of 2024, when the Anoka County Elections Integrity Team (ACEIT) had supported Mayor Weston Rolf (City of Oak Grove) to, along with his city council, cancel the leasing agreement with Anoka County.

This led to a felony threat in a letter from the Anoka County Elections Department in an unsigned letter that seemed to be contributed by the Anoka County Attorney Brad Johnson and which directly quoted Secretary of State Steve Simon.

The excitement, it seemed, was from a very small group. Even with the cost and their need to be replaced quite frequently, why did they want these electronic poll pads so badly? It wasn’t exactly clear then—though there were hunches. What made people like me question more was the official suggestion to any election judges (election workers, in Minnesota) in Anoka County that if they decided to use paper poll books in the 2024 genera election, that the Anoka County Attorney would have no choice but to hand them felonies. This threat came only days before the 2024 election.

Meanwhile, few outside that circle, even those who had been skeptical about recently reported results from the overall computerized systems, realized the extent of the spread of this particular ‘roster’ technology, nor its likely decisive impact. When questioned, the narrative from those encouraging the march of the iPads was dogmatic, something like, These electronic devices are just a way to check-in and register voters, in a tone that invited more questions. And so it seemed there was much more to learn about these internet-capable tablets and everything they might enable. With so much noise and a few tangible efforts in the domain of elections in that year and the immediately preceding few, it is understandable that not so many Minnesotans were yet to notice the deeper motivations and thoughts—perhaps even a design—which led to their purchase and routine use.

Now, however, with the short list of changes needed to decentralize elections, to put them back in the hands of the people, to make them obviously transparent and understandable to all—perhaps only removing the electronic poll pads and using paper poll books (as was done for decades prior), is something with the power and authority of local governments, including cities, towns, and counties right here, right Now, in Minnesota.

At a time in the first half of the year 2025 when many are asking, What can be done?, the answer might simply be to not buy the iPads in the first place, or to cancel the existing contracts, and use paper, which is secure, auditable, and reliable, and therefore worthy of public trust.

On April 24, 2025 I learned that already 71 counties had deployed over 7,000 KNOWiNK electronic poll pads, which are in the case of the latest rollout iPads with cellular-internet capability and software enabling syncing inside a precinct and outside, to state-level databases such as the statewide voter