Butler v City of Saint Paul (1) - Laserfiche WebLink

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Butler v. City of Saint Paul, 936 N.W.2d 478 (2019) © 2022 Thomson Reuters. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.2 compared each signature on petition to state's official record of registered voters, city reviewed petition four more times to re-examine rejected signatures and still found that it fell 74 signatures short of the minimum statutory requirement, and citizen produced no evidence to demonstrate that any of those 74 signatures were wrongly rejected by the city because those individuals were residents of city. Minn. Stat. Ann. § 204B.44. [6]Election Law Actions against officers A petitioner claiming that election officials committed an error, omission, or wrongful act bears the burden to prove that the officials made an error that requires correction. Minn. Stat. Ann. § 204B.44. *479 Syllabus by the Court Because city election officials did not err in using the statewide voter registration system to verify that appellant's petition met statutory signature requirements, and because appellant did not carry his burden to prove that his petition met those requirements, the district court properly granted summary judgment on appellant's challenge to the rejection of his petition. Court of Appeals Attorneys and Law Firms Terence G. O'Brien, Jr., Law Office of Terence G. O'Brien, PLLC, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for appellant. Lyndsey M. Olson, Saint Paul City Attorney, Anthony G. Edwards, Assistant City Attorney, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for respondents. OPINION GILDEA, Chief Justice. The question presented in this case is whether city election officials erred in refusing to put appellant Peter Butler's petition to amend Saint Paul's City Charter before the voters in the next election. The City, relying on the statewide voter registration system (“SVRS”), concluded that Butler's petition did not have the required number of signatures and rejected the petition. Butler asserted that the City's rejection was erroneous, and he filed an action under Minn. Stat. § 204B.44 (2018) to correct the City's error. The district court granted the City's motion for summary judgment, and the court of appeals affirmed. Because we agree that city election officials did not err in using the SVRS to verify that Butler's petition met the statutory signature requirements, and because Butler did not meet his burden to prove that his petition met statutory requirements, we affirm. FACTS The City of Saint Paul is a home rule charter city. Minn. Const. art. XII, § 4 (“Any local government unit when authorized by law may adopt a home rule charter for its government.”). Amendments to a city charter “may be proposed ... by a petition of five percent of the voters of the local government unit as determined by law” and must be approved by a majority of voters. Minn. Const. art. XII, § 5. Butler and others gathered signatures in support of a petition to amend section 7.01 of the Saint Paul City Charter to move city elections from odd- to even-numbered years. See Saint Paul, Minn., City Charter § 7.01. To place a charter-amendment proposal on the ballot, a “petition of voters equal in number to five percent of the total votes cast at the last previous state general election in the city” is required. Minn. Stat. § 410.12, subd. 1 (2018). The parties agree that Butler's petition needed 7,011 signatures to reach the five-percent threshold. Butler's petition, which was submitted on July 7, 2017, to the Ramsey County Elections Office, contained 7,656 signatures. Election officials used the SVRS to determine whether the petition contained a sufficient number of signatures. The SVRS “is the official record of registered voters.” Minn. Stat. § 201.081, subd. 1(a) (2018). It is maintained by the secretary of state and lists the name and registration information *480 of every legally registered voter in Minnesota. Minn. Stat. § 201.021 (2018). The SVRS is regularly updated with address- change information provided to the secretary of state. See Minn. Stat. § 201.13, subd. 3 (2018) (explaining that, in addition to the list of address changes from the United States