Mahamoud Wardere (in red) talks to a voter at Brian Coyle Center

Last night Omar Jamal, head of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, told KSTP news that as many as 500 people were either persuaded or misled to vote for Al Franken at the Brian Coyle Center on Tuesday. As the Minnesota Independent reported on Tuesday, witnesses at the Brian Coyle Center told me and another reporter on site, Juila Nekessa Opoti, who writes for the Twin Cities Daily Planet and M’shale, a local African community newspaper, that voters were being persuaded to vote for Norm Coleman. What’s more, a Coleman staffer named Mahamoud Wardere was on hand throughout most of the day acting as at one point a GOP challenger and at another a translator.

As reported earlier, Wardere, who admitted he was uncertain of his role, was asked to leave the gymnasium where votes were being cast. Instead, he remained on site talking to voters in the foyer, at the entrance, and in a room adjacent to the gymnasium. He repeatedly claimed he was not working for Coleman, and he was on “vacation” that day. Yet Friday night’s KSTP report says that, “after people started complaining about Franken supporters, calls were made to the Coleman campaign. At which time a Coleman campaign worker allegedly showed up at the polling place.”

This begs the question: Why was Norm Coleman’s campaign contacted if there were alleged problems with voter persuasion? Who contacted them, instead of an election judge or the Secretary of State’s office, to investigate?  And what exactly was Wardere’s role at the Center if he was working as a translator and for Norm Coleman, as the KSTP report alleges? He repeatedly told MnIndy that he was not working for Coleman and, in fact, refused to reveal his name until I confronted him after learning it.

The KSTP report also raises serious questions about the number of voters who were persuaded to vote for Franken. Jamal tells KSTP that as many as 500 people who could have been led to vote for Franken. Yet Jamal told the same station only two days ago that complaints were coming from voters who say that translators were persuading people to vote for Franken and Coleman. He claimed that Franken and Coleman workers were, according to KSTP, trying to illegally influence a “few dozen” Somali voters. Suddenly that number has leapt to 500, and Jamal now says they were all persuaded by translators to vote for Franken.

The Brian Coyle Center is in the 2nd Ward, Precinct 10, and according to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office, the voter tallies are as follows: Obama 938, McCain 122; Franken 854, Coleman 161. There were 39 “ticket splitters” for Coleman, not a stunning anomaly, yet Jamal is claiming as many as 500 of those votes for Franken were possible persuasions. What’s more, because of Jamal’s new claims, SoS Mark Ritchie has said he will “hold off” on counting those votes until after an investigation by the Hennepin County Attorney’s office. Any dismissal of the votes will no doubt favor Coleman.

Opoti made a call to Jamal this afternoon to verify his claim and ensure that KSTP had reported the number correctly. She says Jamal told her that “more or less than 500 voters” were persuaded by translators to vote for Franken. She asked Jamal about the witnesses who told her and MnIndy that translators on site were pressuring people to vote for Coleman. Opoti says Jamal has now dismissed those complaints. “There is no evidence of that,” he told her. “Those people were lying.”

Opoti, a Kenyan immigrant, says the outright dismissal of the claims she encountered firsthand is infuriating. “It doesn’t matter who wins, Franken or Coleman. What matters is that these people were being disenfranchised. I talked to so many people who were so excited to vote, to be a part of this democracy. Their votes should count. It disgusts me that it’s come to this.”

Mahamoud Wardere (in red) talks to voter at Brian Coyle Center

The Minnesota Secretary of State’s office says that if Coleman staffer Mahamoud Wardere was at Brian Coyle Center for most of the afternoon on Election Day, that Minnesota election laws were “potentially” broken. According to Beth Fraser, director of governmental affairs at the Secretary of State’s office, a translator can only be inside a polling place if they are assisting a specific voter. They cannot remain onsite, as we reported Wardere did, acting as a go-to interpreter.

Wardere, a paid staffer in Norm Coleman’s office whose title is listed as constituent policy liaison, was called in by two GOP challengers at the site after they told an election judge they wanted to bring in their own translator. Wardere remained onsite for at least four hours.

Minnesota statute 204C.06, regarding conduct in and near polling places, states that “no one except an election official or an individual who is waiting to register or to vote shall stand within 100 feet of the building in which a polling place is located.” Fraser says that if Wardere was there throughout the afternoon and not aiding an individual voter with translation, then it’s possible laws were broken. “That is up for the county attorney to investigate,” Fraser says. “And I do not have all the facts. But if that happened, then potentially laws were broken.”

What’s more, the GOP conceivably violated election laws by at one point having three challengers as well as Wardere on site.  After being asked by an election judge to leave, Wardere told the Minnesota Independent that neither he nor the election judge were certain if his role at Brian Coyle was to act as GOP challenger or translator. Wadere did not leave the building, and instead remained in the foyer or entrance of Brian Coyle Center for most of the afternoon. He later told MnIndy that he was only there to help voters with language issues. One GOP challenger, whose counterpart called in Wardere to act as their translator earlier that morning, refused to speak with MnIndy about allegations of voter intimidation or Wardere’s role at the site.

“Only one challenger from either party can be on site at one time,” Fraser says. And according to Minnesota statute 204C.07 regarding challengers, “[Challengers] shall not converse with a voter except to determine, in the presence of an election judge, whether the voter is eligible to vote in the precinct.” If Wardere spoke with voters while he was acting as a challenger, this is also a potential violation of the law, Fraser says.

As MnIndy reported on Tuesday, voters charged that translators on site were persuading voters to vote for Norm Coleman. According to another Minnesota statute regarding voter assistance, 204c.15, “A voter who claims a need for assistance because of inability to read English or physical inability to mark a ballot may obtain the aid of two election judges who are members of different major political parties.” And it goes on to say, “An election judge or other individual assisting a voter shall not in any manner request, persuade, induce, or attempt to persuade or induce the voter to vote for any particular political party or candidate.”

The Secretary of State’s office responds to written complaints, Fraser says, which are then forwarded to the county attorney’s office for investigation. So far, the SoS has not received complaints in writing regarding conduct at the Brian Coyle Center.

Mahoumad Wardere (in red) talks to voter at Brian Coyle Center

(Updated at 8:19 p.m.) Today I was interviewed by WCCO’s Esme Murphy about my story regarding voter allegations of illegal activity and intimidation at Brian Coyle Center yesterday. The main issue, as we reported yesterday, was that a campaign staffer for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, Mahamoud Wardere, was on hand nearly the entire day, at least from 11 a.m. till past 3 p.m., acting as an interpreter and/or challenger. And a handful of voters — at least three to me and two to an election observer — complained that interpreters were telling people to vote for Coleman.

At the end of her report, Murphy noted that Coleman’s campaign manager, Cullen Sheehan, said Wardere did nothing wrong. He was only there to act as an interpreter, Sheehan said, and he had a “Republican attorney with him at all times.”

Yet that’s not the entire story.

As I noted in my report yesterday, Wardere was reluctant to give me his name at first. Wardere was asked by one of the election judges to leave the gymnasium where voters were casting their ballots, and I went in the adjacent room where Wardere sat to ask him what happened. Wardere told me he was not sure of his role — if he was called in to be a GOP challenger or an interpreter. Wardere and a GOP challenger were in the gymnasium together for at least an hour before an election judge determined that his role was unclear and reiterated that only one challenger representing either party could be at the polls. Wardere explicitly stated to me that the Republican challengers at Brian Coyle Center called him in, and he added, “I am not sure what is happening, and until I know and the city knows what my role is I would rather not give you my name or what I am doing because I do not know.”

Wardere only gave me his name after I learned from voters that he was a staffer from Coleman’s office, and I made a phone call to my editor, Steve Perry, to determine his name. At that point, I confronted Wardere about his role in Coleman’s office, and he told me he was “on vacation” and that he was at the polling place only to help with language issues. He denied telling voters how to cast their ballots. And he remained at Brian Coyle Center for at least four hours, chatting up voters in the foyer of the center and outside the main entrance.

You can watch video of Murphy’s story here.

Update: KSTP also followed up on the story MnIndy broke yesterday. According to an interview the station did with local Somali leader Omar Jamal, the Somali Advocacy Center is looking into allegations of voters being pressured to vote for both Coleman and DFL challenger Al Franken. While both are very serious allegations, the only complaints I encountered from voters at Brian Coyle, as my original story noted, were that voters were being persuaded to vote for Coleman. And while Wardere, who worked as both a translator and challenger at the site and remained there throughout the afternoon, is also a paid Coleman staffer, I did not encounter anyone at the center who was known to work for Franken’s campaign.