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Mark Ritchie (Minnesota)
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Donald "Mark" Ritchie (b. December 21, 1951, in Georgia) was the Democratic Minnesota Secretary of State from 2007-2015. Ritchie was first elected to the statewide position on November 7, 2006 and was sworn into office on January 2, 2007. He won re-election in 2010.[1] In June 2014, Ritchie announced that he would retire from the secretary's office after finishing his second term instead of seek re-election again in 2014.[1] He was succeeded by Democrat Steve Simon on January 5, 2015.[2]
Ritchie's time in the secretary's office was marked by efforts to enhance voter participation and crack down on business identity theft. In September 2013, Ritchie used his authority as the state's chief elections officer to make Minnesota the 15th state in the nation to allow online voter registration.[3] In 2011, as president of the National Association of Secretaries of State in 2011, Ritchie made business identity theft a top priority. He convened a national business identity theft task force to address the growing incidence of reported business identity theft crimes.[4] As the result of the work of that task force, NASS partnered with Identity Theft Protection Association (ITPA) to create and launch www.BusinessIDTheft.org, a resource for educating business owners about business identity theft. The website includes information on risk management, theft prevention and victim assistance.[5]
A January 2013 article in Governing named Ritchie as one of the top state Democratic officials to watch in 2013.[6]
Biography
Ritchie was born in Georgia but raised in Iowa. In 1971, he graduated from Iowa State University with his bachelor's degree.
Before becoming secretary of state, Ritchie's private and public sector experience reflected his interests regarding environmental sustainability, trade systems and voter outreach, particularly in relation to rural communities. Much of his work was done through the establishment and management of nonprofit organizations, such as the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and the Global Environment and Trade Study (GETS). Richie spent about 20 years serving as president of the IATP, a Minnesota nonprofit research and advocacy organization whose mission is to promote sustainable food, farm and trade systems for the state's rural communities; Meanwhile, GETS, which he helped found, studied complex linkages between international trade and environmental sustainability.
Highlighting his efforts to increase voter participation, Ritchie established the League of Rural Voters. In the midst of the 2000 presidential election, he helped form with cooperation from 52 farm and rural activists the Family Farmers' National Alliance for Nader/La Duke, which lent its support to Ralph Nader's failed presidential campaign.[7] In 2004, Ritchie was asked to lead National Voice, a national coalition of nonpartisan organizations from across the country. Four-hundred Minnesota organizations under National Voice formed the Minnesota Participation Project, which, in turn, led the national media campaign, NOVEMBER 2, to help find new ways to get people involved in the elections.
Ritchie's intersecting passions for civics and trade can be traced back to the 1980s, when Ritchie served as a high-ranking official in the Minnesota Agriculture Department.[8] During his tenure at the department, Ritchie's reputation in civic society and the international trade community was tested by a controversy where he obtained and sent confidential trade documents to members of Congress. According to a Star Tribune story, the United States trade representative at the time said that the documents were classified and that their release could have hurt the country's negotiating position with other nations.[9] Ritchie, however, denied in the article that the documents were secret and said he had obtained them legitimately.[10]
Education
- Bachelor's degree, Iowa State University (1971)
Political career
Minnesota Secretary of State (2007-2015)
Mark Ritchie was elected in November 2006 and sworn into office on January 2, 2007. He was re-elected in 2010 and retired after his second term.[1] He was succeeded by fellow Democrat Steve Simon on January 5, 2015.
NASS
Ritchie was president of the National Association of Secretaries of State during 2011 and was a member of the NASS executive board from 2010 to 2015.[11] While serving as President of the NAAS, Ritchie convened a national business identity theft task force to address the growing incidence of reported business identity theft crimes. As the result of the work of that task force, NASS partnered with Identity Theft Protection Association (ITPA) to create and launch www.BusinessIDTheft.org, a resource for educating business owners about business identity theft. The website includes information on risk management, theft prevention and victim assistance.[12]
Noteworthy events
Online Voter Registration
In September 2013, Minnesota became the fifteenth state to allow online voter registration.[3] Ritchie authorized the system to go online without first addressing the Legislature, which then became concerned that Ritchie had overstepped his boundaries. Both Republican and Democratic members of the legislature worried about the privacy concerns associated with collecting online information and publicly criticized Ritchie for not presenting the idea for their review first.[3] Deputy Secretary of State Beth Fraser addressed concerns in an open letter to Republican leaders David Hann, Kurt Daudt, Senator Scott Newman and Representative Tim Sanders.[13] The Secretary of State’s office “has repeatedly added to the online tools available to voters — tools that similarly were authorized under existing law and about which we have never heard a complaint,” Fraser wrote. “Online voter registration and online absentee ballot applications are the logical next step.”[13]
“This tool is saving costs, minimizing inaccurate records and reflects the integrity of the state’s strong voting system,” Ritchie said in a statement. After the website MnVotes.org was launched with the new registration feature, nearly 500 people had updated their registration information and 110 new voters had registered within the first two weeks.[14]
ACORN and Tides Center
In the midst of the recount for the 2008 senatorial race between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman (R) and former-SNL writer/personality Al Franken (D), Ritchie, who chaired the nonpartisan Minnesota Canvassing Board overseeing the recount, received an endorsement in addition to campaign donations from the Minnesota ACORN Political Action Committee in 2006. One article on his campaign website promoted the "fine work ACORN did in Florida to pass a constitutional amendment to raise the state's minimum wage."[15] ACORN, which also endorsed Franken, boasted about playing a major role in the 2008 elections, claiming to have "registered 43,000 new voters, which it describes as 75 percent of the state's new registrations. Franken's margin of victory in the Senate race was razor-thin: 312 votes out of about 3 million cast."[16] Over 25 voting precincts recorded more votes than there were registered voters, votes that were overwhelmingly in favor of Franken.[17]
Additionally, "Ritchie blocked an investigation of ACORN ... despite evidence of 'a number of irregularities' in Minnesota voter records," according to Jeff Davis, president of Minnesota Majority, a nonpartisan legislative watchdog organization.[18]
Ritchie and his brother owned and operated a "'sustainable coffee' company called Headwaters, Inc., which did business with the public using the name Peace Coffee." Headwaters, Inc. conducted its operations out of the same office as the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), a nonprofit organization of which Ritchie was president. The company received more than $20,000 from the Tides Foundation.[19]
Founded in 1976 by California activist and liberal philanthropist Drummond Pike, the Tides Center and its tangled web of offshoot operations "established itself as an important funding nexus for movements and causes aligned with leftist ideology."[20] The Tides Center also had ties to the embattled ACORN organization. Wade Rathke, who helped found ACORN, "has been a Tides director from the start and chairs Tides, Inc."[21] Rathke's brother, Dale, laundered more than $900,000 from ACORN, an alleged crime that was never reported to law enforcement; "the Rathke family was allowed to work out a deal to repay the money," so as to keep the incident quiet and out of the public eye.[22]
Elections
2014
Ritchie was eligible for re-election, but he said in a June 2013 statement that he would not seek a third term as secretary of state in 2014.[1]
2010
| 2010 Race for Secretary of State - Democratic Primary[23] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote Percentage | |
| Democratic Party |  Mark Ritchie
|
81.8% | |
| Democratic Party | Dick Franson | 18.2% | |
| Total Votes | 389,377 | ||
| 2010 Race for Secretary of State - General Election[24] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote Percentage | |
| Democratic Party | Mark Ritchie
|
49.1% | |
| Republican Party | Dan Severson | 45.6% | |
| Independent | Jual Carlson | 5.2% | |
| Write-In | 0.1% | ||
| Total Votes | 2,035,365 | ||
2006
| 2006 Race for Secretary of State - Democratic Primary[25] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote Percentage | |
| Democratic Party | Mark Ritchie
|
71.4% | |
| Democratic Party | Dick Franson | 28.6% | |
| Total Votes | 265,457 | ||
| 2006 Race for Secretary of State - General Election[26] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Vote Percentage | |
| Democratic Party | Mark Ritchie
|
49.1% | |
| Republican Party | Mary Kiffmeyer | 44.2% | |
| Independent | Bruce Kennedy | 3.7% | |
| American Independent Party | Joel Spoonheim | 3.0% | |
| Total Votes | 2,137,643 | ||
Endorsements
- See also: Secretary of State Project
The Center for Public Integrity reported in September 2008 that Ritchie received both the endorsement and financial assistance (nearly $23,000) from the Secretary of State Project, a below-the-radar 527 political organization whose purpose is to "wrestling control of the country from the Republican Party" through the process of "removing their political operatives from deciding who can vote and whose votes will count," namely the office of secretary of state in many cases.[27][28]
Noteworthy events
Use of contact information
In 2007, Ritchie was accused of "improperly using a list of participants in a secretary of state civic engagement program to solicit contributions for his own political campaign."[29] He initially denied knowing how his campaign received a list of email addresses of participants in the state-sponsored program who were sent emails asking for campaign contributions. A complaint was raised by two Republican activists who attended the office's publicly funded event for having their email addresses turned over to Ritchie's political operation.
Shortly following an investigation conducted by the Legislative Auditor of Minnesota, Ritchie admitted, "he personally provided a copy of the directory to his campaign and requested that those on the list get a copy of his campaign's civic engagement newsletter."[30] State Republican leaders, believing Ritchie had betrayed the public trust and raised questions concerning his ability to serve as a nonpartisan overseer of state elections, called for his resignation as secretary of state.[31]
The State Legislative Auditor, though admitting that Ritchie had not broken any laws in his campaign's use of the email list because it was public data, chastised him for not fulfilling his legal obligation to make a full and timely response to a request for information.[32]
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
Personal
Note: Please contact us if the personal information below requires an update.
Ritchie currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife, Nancy Gaschott. They had one child together, Rachel Gaschott Ritchie, who was killed by drunk driver at the age of 20.[33]
Recent news
This section links to a Google news search for the term "Mark + Ritchie + Minnesota + Secretary"
See also
- Minnesota Secretary of State
- Governor of Minnesota
- Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota
- Attorney General of Minnesota
Contact information
Capitol Address:
180 State Office Building
100 Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard
Saint Paul, MN 55155-1299
Business Phone: (651) 296-2803
Elections Phone: (651) 215-1440
Toll Free Phone: (800) 627-3529
Fax: (651) 215-0682
E-mail: secretary.state@state.mn.us
External links
- Official Minnesota Secretary of State website
- Mark Ritchie for Secretary of State Campaign website
- Mark Ritchie's Facebook profile
- Mark Ritchie's MySpace profile
- Mark Ritchie's Twitter account
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, "NEWS RELEASE: Secretary of State Ritchie Announces He Will Not Seek Third Term," June 4, 2013
- ↑ Minnesota Secretary of State, "About" accessed January 6, 2015
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Washington Post, Minnesota feuds over online voter registration, October 17, 2013
- ↑ Minnesota Secretary of State, "About Mark Ritchie," accessed April 17, 2012
- ↑ HometownSource.com, "Press Release: NAAS launches theft resource website," April 17, 2012
- ↑ Governing, "State Democratic Officials to Watch in 2013," accessed January 25, 2013
- ↑ Nader 2000 - Family Farmers Endorse Nader
- ↑ University of Minnesota, "June African Development Center Commerce and Community Conversation," June 4, 2013
- ↑ Star Tribune, "Mark Ritchie discussed on Pig's Eye," accessed December 3, 2007
- ↑ Star Tribune, "Ritchie resumes a familiar place in political hot seat," July 13, 2012
- ↑ Minnesota Secretary of State, "About Mark Ritchie," accessed April 17, 2012
- ↑ HometownSource.com, "Press Release: NAAS launches theft resource website," April 17, 2012
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Scribd, Sec of State Response Letter, October 15, 2013
- ↑ Star Tribune, Minnesota's new online voter registration system challenged, October 11, 2013
- ↑ The American Spectator, "SOS in Minnesota" 7 Nov. 2008
- ↑ The Corner on National Review Online, "Sen. Al Franken (D., ACORN)" 29 Sept. 2009
- ↑ Gun Owners of America, "ACORN, MoveOn.org Could Receive Billions of Dollars" 2 Feb. 2009
- ↑ American Courthouse, "Keeping An Eye On The Secretary Of State Project" 1 Oct. 2009
- ↑ True North, "Blind Squirrel Finds ACORN" 14 Oct. 2009 (dead link)
- ↑ Activist Cash, "Tides Foundation & Tides Center"
- ↑ Green Tracking Library - Drummond Pike
- ↑ The Union, "ACORN crime covered-up by Drummond Pike" 20 Aug. 2008
- ↑ Minnesota Secretary of State - 2010 Secretary of State Primary Election Results
- ↑ Minnesota Secretary of State - 2010 General Elections Results
- ↑ Minnesota Secretary of State - 2006 Primary Election Results
- ↑ Minnesota Secretary of State - 2006 General Election Results
- ↑ Center for Public Integrity: Paper Trial Blog, "Election '08: Scoring Secretary of State Seats for Dems" 8 Sept. 2008
- ↑ American Spectator, "SOS in Minnesota" 7 Nov. 2008
- ↑ Star Tribune, "Election official allegedly used list improperly" 29 Oct. 2007
- ↑ Star Tribune, "Ritchie now says he gave email list to campaign" 20 Nov. 2007
- ↑ Star Tribune, "Secretary of State should resign, GOP chair says" 21 Nov. 2007
- ↑ Office of the Legislative Auditor - Investigation: Use of Contact Information
- ↑ MinnPost, "Secretary of State Ritchie Q-A: ‘I have a long list of things I want to do before leaving'," June 10, 2013
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Mary Kiffmeyer (R) |
Minnesota Secretary of State 2007–2015 |
Succeeded by Steve Simon (D) |
| |||||||||||||||||||
