Fraud now ranks second among top concerns for Minnesota voters

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(The Center Square) – Fraud concerns rank among the top issues for Minnesota voters in a new poll, trailing only inflation and the cost of living as the midterm elections draw near.

The concerns come as a recovery fund created following Operation Metro Surge is being ended amid fraud concerns.

The poll, which was conducted by KSTP/SurveyUSA, found fighting fraud to be the top priority Minnesotans want their winning candidates to focus on in both the governor and attorney general’s races.

It was the second most-important thing voters want to winner to focus on in the race for the U.S. Senate, only narrowly bested by protecting Social Security.

“At every level, Minnesota’s voters seem to want officials who will tackle the epidemic of fraud which has been allowed to run rampant in this state over the last few years,” said John Phelan, an economist at the Center of the American Experiment, in an analysis of the poll.

However, heading into the election, when asked about their most-important issues overall, Minnesota voters said:

• 37% - Inflation or cost of living

• 14% - Fraud

• 12% - Healthcare

This poll was conducted from Sept. 9-14 and surveyed 654 likely November voters. It had a margin of error of 4.4%.

This poll comes as yet another story of rampant fraud emerges in Minnesota, an issue that has dominated headlines across the state all year.

Following Operation Metro Surge earlier this year, Hennepin County launched a $2 million Small Business Recovery Fund to help small businesses recover from the federal immigration operations by covering

After receiving about 300 applications for that fund, more than 200 were flagged as potentially fraudulent.

Hennepin County Commissioner Jeffrey Lunde said in an interview last week that the fraud was rampant and included everything from “mythical companies” and impersonating real companies to fraudulent applications.

“We were spending probably two to three times the amount of money in administrative overhead to try to combat fraud,” Lunde said.

According to Lunde, the program ended up only distributing about $500,000 to 82 applicants. He added that the situation reflects a lack of prosecutions or consequences for both attempted and successful fraud.

“People didn't have fear,” Lunde said. “I think we're going to have to devote more resources on the prosecution side . . . We’re going to have to make examples of people, and it has to stick. It can't be just a little slap on the hand and away you go.”