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<br />B-2 <br />DOCSOPEN\MU210\4\780657.v4-2/17/22 <br />requirements of Minnesota Rules and was submitted on the form similar to the sample provided by the <br />Minnesota Secretary of State. The Ramsey County Elections Office reviewed the petition to verify the <br />signatures on the petition for the city of St. Paul and found that a number of signatures was insufficient and <br />certain signatures were invalid because “(1) the signer did not provide all of the required information; (2) <br />the signer was not eligible to vote in St. Paul; (3) the signer’s information was illegible; and (4) the same <br />person signed more than one line on the petition.” The petitioner challenged the City’s use of SVRS to <br />verify the petition and the Minnesota Court of Appeals found that using SVRS to verify petitions is <br />appropriate. <br /> <br />- It should also be noted that both the Petitioners and the Perry Letter refer to the fact that the City <br />applies Minnesota Rules to determine sufficiency as a “legal loophole”. In a footnote to the Butler <br />decision the Court of Appeals notes that “[d]uring oral argument, Butler's counsel argued that Minn. <br />Stat. § 204B.071 grants the secretary of state authority to adopt rules only relating to nominating <br />and referendum petitions and therefore Minn. R. 8205.1050 does not apply to charter-amendment <br />petitions. This assertion is incorrect.” <br /> <br />Only In Re Grand Rapids involves a petition that was similarly deficient to the petition submitted by the <br />Petitioners and lacked the necessary information used to validate signatures. As is mentioned above, the <br />relief granted by the district court was to give the petitioner two days to amend the petition and he was able <br />to do so. The main issue in that case was that the petitioner was not given time to amend the petition to fix <br />the errors and the statute under which the petition was brought did not include any mechanism or timelines <br />under which the city or petitioners were required to respond. This is significantly different than the petition <br />submitted by the committee of petitioners under Minnesota Statutes, Section 410.12 because Minnesota <br />Statutes, Section 410.12 includes timelines under which the city and petitioners are to respond and submit <br />amended materials. <br /> <br />