Peter K. Butler,

1
STATE OF MINNESOTA

IN SUPREME COURT

A18-0655

Court of Appeals Gildea, C.J.

Peter K. Butler,

Appellant,

vs. Filed: December 18, 2019
Office of Appellate Courts
City of Saint Paul, et al.,

Respondents.

________________________

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.
________________________

S Y L L A B U S
Because city election officials did not err in using the statewide vot er 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.
Affirmed.

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O P I N I O N
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

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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, 2 017, 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 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 Postal Service, the secretary of state may also regularly
obtain lists from the Department of Public Safety of registered voters who have applied for
a driver’s license or state identification card with a different address). If a signer did not
appear in the SVRS as registered to vote in Saint Paul, the City rejected that signature.
Seven days after Butler submitted his petition, the Elections Office sent him a notice
of petition insufficiency, informing him that 1,790 of the signatures were invalid and that
he had 10 days to file a supplementary petition with the 1,145 additional signatures
necessary to meet the statutory requirement . See Minn. Stat. § 410.12, subd. 3 (2018)
(allowing a petitioner to submit a supplementary petition within 10 days after receiving
notice of an insufficiency).

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Butler requested that the Elections Office provide a specific reason for the invalidity
of each signature. As relevant here, the Elect ions Off ice explained that it rejected
signatures from those who were not registered to vote in Saint Paul.1
Butler did not file a supplementary petition within 10 days. Instead, he filed a
petition in Ramsey County District Court under Minn. Stat. § 204B.44. Under section
204B.44, a party may file a petition with the district court to correct “any wrongful act,
omission, or error of any . . . municipal clerk . . . or any other individual charged with any
duty concerning an election.” Minn. Stat. § 204B.44(a)(4). Butler asserted that the City
erred by relying on the SVRS to invalidate signatures and in refusing to put his proposed
charter amendment before the voters.2
The parties engaged in discovery concerning the invalidated signatures. Following
this process, the City reduced the number of rejected signatures to 1,699 , which left
Butler’s petition 1,054 signatures short of the required 7,011 signatures.3
Both parties then moved for summary judgment. The City argued that it was entitled
to summary judgment because Butler’s petition did not meet the statutory threshold of

1 The Elections Office also rejected signatures in cases where: (1) the signer did not
provide all of the required information; (2) the signer was not eligible to vote in Saint Paul;
(3) the signer’s information was illegible; and (4) the same person signed more than one
line on the petition. These rejection reasons are not before us in this appeal.

2 Butler also alleged in his petition that the City erred by sending him a notice that
failed to comply with Minn. Stat. § 410.12, subd. 3. The district court found that the
petition failed to state a claim that the City committed an error, omission, or wrongful act
in issuing the notice of insufficiency to Butler. Butler did not pursue this claim on appeal.

3 In its motion for summary judgment, the City stipulated that Butler provided 5,957
valid signatures.

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7,011 signatures. For his part, Butler argued that the City rejected too many signatures.
With his motion, Butler included an affidavit stating that the City improperly rejected a t
least 1,127 signatures. Butler argued that these signatures should not have been rejected
because the signers lived in Saint Paul based on his examination of public-information
voter lists provided by the secretary of state, screenshots from the SVRS disclosed by the
City during discovery, Ramsey County property records, and Minnesota marriage
certificates. And he argued that the City had incorrectly invalidated these 1,127 signatures
because the signers were listed on Saint Paul’s voter-registration lists when they signed the
petition.
The district court determined that Butler had produced “some record evidence” that
980 of the rejected signatures were from residents of Saint Paul who were registered voters
eligible to vote at the time they signed the petition or at the time the petition was submitted
to the City. But even when those 980 signatures were added to the 5,957 signatures already
accepted by the City, the district court concluded that the petition was still 74 signatures
short of the five-percent statutory threshold.
Butler also argued that the City had wrongfully rejected 147 signatures because it
had relied on the SVRS—rather than the addresses listed on the petition—to verify whether
the signers were registered to vote in Saint Paul. If these 147 signatures were accepted,
Butler argued, his petition would contain more than the 7,011 signatures required. The
district court rejected this argument, determining that Butler had produced no evidence to
support the assertion that the signers were residents of Saint Paul , other than a Saint Paul

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address listed on the petition.4 Concluding that no genuine dispute of material fact existed
as to whether the City erred in rejecting the signatures , the district court granted summary
judgment for the City.
Butler appealed, and the court of appeals affirmed the district court. Butler v. City
of Saint Paul , 923 N.W.2d 43, 51 (Minn. App. 2019) . Although Butler had shown a
difference between the information on the petition and the information included in the
SVRS, the court of appeals determined that he failed to produce admissible evidence to
suggest “that this difference amounts to an error, omi ssion, or wrongful act by election
officials.” Id.
We granted Butler’s petition for review.
ANALYSIS
This case comes to us on appeal from the district court’s entry of summary judgment
for the City, and our review is de novo. Riverview Muir Doran, LLC v. JADT Dev. Grp.,
LLC, 790 N.W.2d 167, 170 (Minn. 2010) (explaining that we review the grant of summary
judgment de novo) . Butler argues that the district court erred in two respects. First , he
argues that the district court improperly upheld the City’s decision to rely on the SVRS to
disqualify some signatures on his petition. Second, Butler argues that he at least raised an
issue for trial as to the residency of a sufficient number of signatories and so granting
summary judgment for the City was erroneous. We consider each issue in turn.

4 The district court found that 111 of these signers were registered to vote in
jurisdictions other than Saint Paul and that there was no record evidence to support Butler’s
assertion that the other 36 signers were living in Saint Paul during the petition period.

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A.
We turn first to Butler’s argument that the district court erred in upholding the City’s
reliance on the SVRS to reject signatures contained in Butler’s petition. Butler’s petition
involves a citizen-led effort to urge residents of Saint Paul to vote to amend the city charter.
We have long promoted “the enfranchisement of qualified voters [.]” Bell v. Gannaway ,
227 N.W.2d 797, 802 (Minn. 1975) (upholding challenged absentee ballots). And we have
been reluctant to exclude such petitions “on mere technicalities,” because they can be “the
result of democracy working at the grassroots level.” Bogen v. Sheedy, 229 N.W.2d 19, 24
(Minn. 1975). But we also recognize that we must adhere to mandatory statutory
requirements, such as a voter’s “affidavit of residence and eligibility ” to vote, to ensure
that only those who are qualified to participate do so. Bell, 227 N.W.2d at 803 (concluding
that absentee voters “must be held to a strict compliance” with all substantial requirements
of absentee voter statutes).
The statutory requirements at issue here are found in Minn. Stat. § 410.12 (2018).
In this statute, the Legislature provided methods to amend home rule charters, including
the process for amendments voters propose in voter-circulated petition s. Minn. Stat.
§ 410.12; Minneapolis Term Limits Coal . v. Keefe, 535 N.W.2d 306, 308 (Minn. 1995).
Under section 410.12, “[o]nly registered voters are eligible to sign the petition.” Minn.
Stat. § 410.12, subd. 1; see also Minn. Const. art. XII, § 5 (“Home rule charter amendments
may be proposed . . . by a petition of five percent of the voters of the local government unit
as determined by law [.]”). In addition, the “petition must contain each petitioner’s
signature . . . and must indicate after the signature the place of residence by street and

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number, or other description sufficient to identify the place.” Minn. Stat. § 410.12, subd. 2.
Once the petition has been filed and transmitted to the city council, the city clerk has
10 days to determine “whether the petition is signed by a sufficient number of voters [,]”
and to “certify the result[s] of th[at] examination to the council.” Id., subd. 3.
The dispute in this case is over the way in which the City determines which voters
are eligible to sign a petition submitted under section 410.12 . The parties agree that the
language of section 410.12 is unambiguous, but each side contends that th e unambiguous
language supports their respective interpretations. The parties’ disagreement centers on
the requirement in subdivision 1 that only “registered voters” can sign a petition to propose
an amendment to the city charter. Id., subd. 1. The City contends that the statute requires
it to verify that a sufficient number of petition sign ers are, in fact, residents of Saint Paul.
To do so, the City used the SVRS to verify that the petition signers were registered to vote
in Saint Paul. If a sign er listed a Saint Paul address on the petition but was registered to
vote at an address outside of Saint Paul, the City rejected that signature. The City rejected
147 signatures for this reason, which Butler argues was an error. 5

5 At oral argument, the City’s counsel asserted that for a person to be eligible to sign
a petition to amend the Saint Paul City Charter, the person must be registered to vote in
Saint Paul. The City explained that a person who is registered to vote at an address outside
of Saint Paul but who has moved since that registration and now maintains residence in
Saint Paul is likely eligible to sign the petition. But because voter residency is determined
in accord with principles largely based on an individual’s intent, the City contends that the
city clerk is unable to verify that the signer is a Saint Paul resident without some record
evidence. See, e.g., Minn. Stat. § 200.031(1) (2018) (“The residence of an individual is in
the precinct where the individual’s home is located, from which the individual has no
present intention of moving, and to which, whenever the individual is absent, the individual
intends to return.”). The City argues that the city clerk therefore did not err in relying on

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Butler asserts that the stat ute’s language merely requires the City to verify that
(1) the sign er is a registered voter , and (2) the address the signer lists as the signer’s
residence on the petition is located within the city. He argues that the plain language of
the statute requires that the City rely on the address listed on the petition for the signer’s
place of residence. See id., subd. 2 (“A petition . . . must indicate after the signature the
place of residence by street and number , or other description sufficient to identify the
place.”). The statute , Butler contends, does not mandate that the address listed on the
petition conform to the sign er’s voter -registration record nor does it require a dditional
proof of the signer ’s reside nce. Butler asserts that the City therefore erred in looking
beyond the petition to voter-registration records to determine the voter’s residency.
Butler further argues that the City’s review is limited to determining only whether
the petition is signed by a sufficient number of registered voters. See id., subd. 1 (“Only
registered voters are eligible to sign the petition.”). A “registered voter,” Butler argues, is
defined by being a person listed in the SVRS, not by the residence that the person lists
when registering to vote. See Minn. Stat. § 201.081, subd. 1(a) (“The statewide registration
system is the official record of registered voters.”). Butler contends that any person listed
in the SVRS is a registered voter and is thus eligible to sign the petition as long as the
person also lists a Saint Paul residence address on the petition.
To summarize Butler’s position, he asserts that while the City may use the SVRS to
verify whether the petition signers are registered to vote, it cannot use the SVRS to

the residence listed in the SVRS to determine whether the signers are residents of Saint
Paul.

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determine whether the signers are residents of Saint Paul. Doing so, Butler argues, was an
error for purposes of Minn. Stat. § 204B.44. We disagree.
Butler is effectively arguing that the City should ignore information in the SVRS
when that information lists a registered address dif ferent from the address listed o n the
petition. Specifically, if we adopted Butler’s argument, we would require the City to ignore
affirmative evidence in the SVRS that the signer was not an eligible voter in Saint Paul.
But the statute requires that city election officials verify whe ther the petition is
signed by the required number of voters. Minn. Stat. § 410.12, subd. 3; see also Minn. R.
8205.1050, subp. 2(B) (201 7) (explaining the verification process for petitions and the
City’s obligation to verify whether the petition “has be en signed by the required number
of signatories and whether the signatories meet the appl icable eligibility requirements”).6
And state law provides that only registered voters are eligible to sign a petition like the one
that Butler submitted. Minn. Stat. § 410.12, subd. 1. Because state law provides that only
registered voters are eligible to sign petitions, id., and because the SVRS is the official

6 See Minn. Stat. § 204B.071 (2018) (“The secretary of state shall ado pt rules
governing the manner in which petitions required for any election in this state are
circulated, signed, filed, and inspected.”). During oral argument, Butler’s counsel argued
that Minn. Stat. § 204B.071 grants the secretary of state authority to adopt rules only
relating to nominating and referendum petitions and therefore Minn. R. 8205.1050 does
not apply to charter -amendment petitions. This assertion is incorrect. Chapter 204B
“applies to all elections held in this state except as otherwise provided by law.” Minn. Stat.
§ 204B.02 (2018). Section 204B.071 falls under the section titled “Candidate Nomination
and Filing,” Minn. Stat. §§ 204B.03–.12 (2018) (emphasis added), which includes filing
petitions to place a charter amendment on the ballot. See Minn. Stat. § 204B.071; see also
In re Referendum to Amend City of Grand Rapids, Minn. Mun. Elections Ordinance No.
04-08-11, No. A05-2350, 2006 WL 1985595, at *2 (Minn. App. July 18, 2006) (“Petition
forms required for any Minnesota election are g overned by rules adopted by the secretary
of state.”).

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record of registered voters in Minnesota, Minn. Stat. § 201.081, subd. 1(a), it was not an
error for the City to look to the SVRS in determining whether Butler’s petition met the
statutory requirements.
The fact that eligibility to vote is tied to both registration and residency reinforces
this conclusion. Under state law, e ligible voters “may vote only in the precinct in whic h
the voter[s] maintain[] residence.” Minn. Stat. § 201.016, subd. 1 (2018). To cast a ballot
in an election, “eligible voter[s] must register,” Minn. Stat. § 201.018, subd. 2 (2018), and
in their voter -registration application, voters must list their current address. Minn. Stat.
§ 201.071, subd. 1 (2018). This address is recorded in the SVRS, Minn. Stat. § 201.121,
subd. 1(a) (2018), which is then updated when voters apply for an address change or for a
new state identification card. See Minn. Stat. § 201.13, subd. 3. Given that a voter’s
registration is tied to the voter’s current residence, it does not arise to the level of an error,
omission, or wrongful act, see Minn. Stat. § 204B.44, for the City to reject a signature of a
voter whose current residence, as listed in the SVRS, is located outside of Saint Paul. 7
Based on our analysis, we hold that the City did not err for purposes of Minn. Stat.
§ 204B.44 by relying on the SVRS to determine eligibility and rejecting signatures of those
who were registered to vote at an address outside of Saint Paul.

7 That is not to say that a person who lists a residence address on her voter registration
is forever tied to that address. In fact, the parties agree that if a registered voter did not
reside “in St . Paul in the previous election but now resides in St. Paul and remains a
registered voter, that person is eligible to sign a petition under section 410.12. ” Butler,
923 N.W.2d at 49.

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B.
We turn next to Butler’s argument that he raised an issue for trial as to the
qualifications of a sufficient number of signers. Butler argues that the district court erred
in denying his section 204B.44 petition because genuine disputes of material fact precluded
summary judgment . Specifically, he contends that discrepancies between a residential
address in Saint Paul on the petition, as compared to data in the SVRS show ing that the
signer is registered to vote at an address outside of Saint Paul, present material factual
disputes. We are not persuaded.
Butler brought his challenge to the City’s action under Minn. Stat. § 204B.44.
Butler therefore has the burden to prove that the City made an error that requires correction.
Paquin v. Mack, 788 N.W.2d 899, 904 (Minn. 2010) (explaining that the petitioner bears
the burden of showing election officials committed an error, omission, or wrongful act).
The record shows that Butler did not carry his burden a s the section 204B.44 petitioner .
See id. Rather, it demonstrates that the City diligently compared each signature in his
petition to the SVRS —“the official record of registered voters.” Minn. Stat. § 201.081,
subd. 1(a).
In its initial review of Butler’s petition, the City had 10 days to examine the
786-page petition to verify whether it includ ed the required number of valid signatures,
and it did so by relying on the SVRS. After Butler filed his section 204B.44(a)(4) petition,
the City reviewed his voter-circulated petition four more times to re -examine the rejected
signatures, rescind the rejections for some signatures, and provide reasons supporting the
invalidation of each rejected signature. Even after these four reviews, the district court

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found that the petition fell 74 signatures short of the minimum statutory requirement. And
the district court determined that Butler “produced no evidence” to demonstrate that any of
the signatures were wrongly rejected by the City because those individuals were residents
of S aint Paul . Our review of the record confirms the district court’s assessment and
convinces us that Butler did not carry his burden.
We came to a similar conclusion in Paquin. 788 N.W.2d 899. In Paquin, the county
auditor rejected signatures of signers who listed a post office box as their residence, rather
than a street address, because a post office box “provides no information about the location
of the box renter’s residence.” Id. at 904. We concluded that the section 204B.44 petitioner
failed to provide “any other evidence from . . . signers of his nominating petition who listed
a post office box . . . attesting that [they] intended the city or township and county listed
on the petition to convey their residence address.” Id. We therefore held that the petitioner
failed to meet his burden of showing that the county auditor erred “in rejecting the
signatures of those who listed only a post office box in the residence address colum n” on
the nominating petition. Id. (noting that the petitioner failed to show that the signers’
voting records would establish that the signers lived in the legislative district). Here, Butler
similarly failed to submit admissible evidence, such as signed affidavits, showing that the
signers were, in fact, residents of Saint Paul. Accordingly, he has not met his burden to
show that the City erred in rejecting the petition signatures.
In urging us to reach the contrary conclusion , Butler does not point to evidence
showing that the data in the SVRS, as to the signatures in dispute , was inaccurate in any
way. Rather, he contends that his voter-circulated petition—because it included signatures

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and places of residence—was signed in compliance with the statutory requirements and is
therefore presumptively valid. He concedes that we have not recognized this presumption.
Instead, he relies on a decision from the Montana Supreme Court , which applied such a
presumption in the context of a voter-initiative petition. Montanans for Justice v. State ex
rel. McGrath, 146 P.3d 759, 775 (Mont. 2006). The Montana Supreme Court also held,
however, that once evidence is introduced to rebut the presumption of validity, “it is
incumbent upon . . . the party endorsing the validity of the signatures . . . to come forward
with evidence to rebut or counter the damaging evidence.” Id. Here, even if we were
inclined to adopt the Montana approach, the result would be the same. Assuming Butler’s
voter-circulated petition was presumptively valid, the City offered evidence to rebut that
validity by showing that 147 sign ers were registered to vote at addresses outside of Saint
Paul. Butler, as the district court found, produced no evidence to rebut that showing, and
thus, he failed to meet his burden. Accordingly, we hold that the district court did not err
in granting summary judgment for the City.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of the court of appeals.
Affirmed.