Eighth Circuit Orders Preliminary Injunction Shielding Minnesota Voters Alliance From State Election-Falsehood Law
A three-judge federal appeals panel ruled on August 20, 2026 that Minnesota likely cannot enforce its 60-day ban on knowingly false voting-eligibility statements against the conservative group, while leaving the law in force for everyone else.
A Ruling That Protects One Group and No One Else
Starting September 4, Minnesota's law against knowingly false voting statements will apply to every person and group in the state — except one[4][5]. On August 20, 2026, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Minnesota Voters Alliance likely has a First Amendment right to keep saying something Minnesota law says is false: that felons on probation or supervised release cannot vote[1][2].
The panel didn't strike the law down. It ordered a preliminary injunction — a court order blocking enforcement while the case continues — that covers only the Alliance and its members[1][2]. Judge David Stras wrote the opinion, joined by Judges Raymond Gruender and Jonathan Kobes[2]. The case now goes back to the district court, and Minnesota can still appeal further[2].
That narrow scope is the whole story. Every other advocacy group in Minnesota faces criminal exposure for the same kind of statement during the 60-day pre-election window that opens in two weeks[4]. Only the Alliance has a shield.
Two Fights Wearing the Same Name
"Felon voting" in Minnesota is really two separate arguments, and it's easy to confuse them. The first is about who can vote. The second, the one the court just ruled on, is about what people are allowed to say about who can vote[1][2].
The first question was settled in 2023. Minnesota's Restore the Vote Act gives the ballot back to anyone with a felony conviction the moment they're not incarcerated for it — probation and supervised release included[6][7]. About 55,000 people got their voting rights back when the law took effect[6][7]. A year earlier, the Minnesota Supreme Court had ruled in Schroeder v. Simon that the state constitution doesn't restore voting rights automatically on release; it takes an act of the Legislature to do that[6]. The Legislature then did it.
The Alliance thinks that policy choice was wrong — that someone still serving a sentence, even on supervised release, shouldn't be voting[1][9][10]. It lost that argument. What the 8th Circuit just decided is whether Minnesota can make it a crime to say so.
The Law Reaches Further Than a Simple Anti-Fraud Rule
The statute is Minn. Stat. § 211B.075, subdivision 2. Within 60 days of an election, it bars anyone from knowingly making a materially false statement — including a false statement about voter eligibility — with intent to stop someone from voting[5]. Breaking it is a gross misdemeanor, and the state or an injured voter can also sue for up to $1,000 per violation[5].
Here's the mechanism that made this a First Amendment fight rather than a simple fraud case. Ordinary fraud law usually requires that someone actually relied on the lie and got hurt by it. Minnesota's law doesn't[1]. It punishes the knowing false statement itself, whether or not any listener ever acts on it. The panel treated that gap as important: a law that criminalizes a false statement regardless of its effect on anyone reaches closer to punishing an opinion than punishing a scam[1].
Minnesota's counterargument is that this isn't about opinion at all. Saying "felons shouldn't be allowed to vote" is a policy view, fully legal under the statute. What the law targets is a narrower, targeted kind of statement — telling a specific person, who is in fact eligible, that they are not. State officials argue that kind of lie functions less like debate and more like fraud aimed at one person's legal status, and a wrongly deterred voter can't be un-deterred after Election Day, so a later correction doesn't help them[8][11][13]. A federal district judge found that argument persuasive enough to dismiss the Alliance's challenge in 2024[8][11][13]. The appeals panel disagreed at this stage, ruling that a state cannot criminalize one side of a contested legal position while leaving its own contrary view free[1].
Why the Same Law Looks Different Depending on Who's Holding the Pen
Free-speech lawyers on the left and right, largely apart from the two parties in this case, keep circling the same worry: this kind of statute is enforced by whoever wins the last election. The attorney general and county attorneys who decide whether to prosecute are themselves elected officials[5]. A law that reaches a conservative group's claim about felon eligibility today could just as easily reach a progressive group's claim about voter-ID rules under a different administration[1][12].
That's the structural pressure sitting underneath both sides' legal arguments. It's not that either side is being insincere about what they believe the law should do. It's that a criminal speech law built around "knowing falsity" hands real discretion to prosecutors, and discretion tends to get used differently depending on who has it[1][12].
For Minnesota's Attorney General Keith Ellison and Secretary of State Steve Simon, both Democrats, this ruling is also the second loss in an ongoing fight to defend the 2023 voting-law package against conservative challenges[11]. In 2023, Ellison's office intervened after a Mille Lacs County judge told probationers they couldn't vote, arguing that misinformation from the bench itself threatened the new law[7][14]. Simon is on the ballot in November, which puts this case inside his own campaign as much as inside the courts[4].
What Advocates for Newly Eligible Voters Say Is Actually at Stake
Voting-rights advocates argue the people most exposed here are the roughly 55,000 Minnesotans who got their voting rights back in 2023, many after years of being told, correctly at the time, that they couldn't vote[6][7]. Their argument isn't that the Alliance is lying on purpose to manipulate people. It's that confusion, not persuasion, does the damage — someone on probation who hears "you can't vote" from a group that sounds authoritative may simply not show up, whether or not they stop to weigh the claim[4][7].
That's the frame Raw Story used when it wrote that the Alliance was "exempted" from the law "and no one else," which critics of the coverage note casts a constitutional ruling as a special favor rather than a First Amendment holding[4]. MPR News similarly led with the Alliance gaining "leeway to discourage voting," centering the feared effect over the legal reasoning[3]. Reason's Volokh Conspiracy blog took the opposite tack, headlining the story "Court Partly Blocks" — the most precise of the outlets surveyed — while giving little space to the state's suppression concerns[2]. Bloomberg Law's headline, "Minnesota 'Election Disinformation' Ban Blocked," reads broader than the actual relief, even though its body text lays out the preliminary-injunction limits accurately[1]. Democracy Docket, covering an earlier stage of the case, named the statute "the law prohibiting election disinformation and voter intimidation" in its own headline — folding the state's characterization of the law into the label itself[11].
What Changes on September 4, and What Doesn't
Nothing about who can vote in Minnesota changed on August 20. Anyone not currently incarcerated for a felony can still cast a ballot, probation and supervised release included, exactly as the 2023 law provides[6][7]. Section 211B.075 is still on the books, still a gross misdemeanor, and still enforceable against everyone except the Alliance and its members[2][4][5].
What changed is narrower and, for this election cycle, effectively permanent regardless of what the district court eventually decides. Within the 60-day window opening September 4, the Alliance can tell Minnesotans that felons under sentence can't vote, without risking prosecution, while state election officials remain free to say the opposite[1][4]. No other group in Minnesota has that same protection.
The case isn't over. It returns to the district court for further proceedings, and Minnesota can still seek review from the full 8th Circuit or the Supreme Court[2]. Whether that happens before November, and whether other groups seek the same protection the Alliance now has, is still open.
Summary
On August 20, 2026, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for the Minnesota Voters Alliance, a conservative election-integrity group, in its First Amendment challenge to a Minnesota election-speech law[1][2]. The panel reversed a district court that had refused to block the law and sent the case back with instructions to grant a preliminary injunction covering the Alliance's speech[1][2]. Judge David Stras wrote the opinion, joined by Judges Raymond Gruender and Jonathan Kobes[2].
The law is Minn. Stat. § 211B.075. Within 60 days of an election, it bars knowingly false statements made with intent to stop someone from voting — including false claims about who is eligible[5]. Breaking it is a gross misdemeanor, and violators can also face a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per violation[5]. The Alliance says it wants to keep telling Minnesotans that felons still serving a sentence cannot vote[1]. Under Minnesota's 2023 Restore the Vote Act, that is wrong as a matter of state law: the right to vote comes back the moment a person is out of prison, even while on probation or supervised release[6][7].
What the court granted matters as much as that it granted anything. This was a preliminary injunction, not a final judgment, and the panel did not wipe the statute off the books statewide[1][2]. The law still applies to everyone else during the 60-day window that opens Sept. 4 ahead of the November midterms — a point critics of the ruling have pressed hard[4]. The Alliance is, for now, the only group in Minnesota with a court order protecting it from the law[4].
The genuine dispute is over what the law does. Minnesota says it punishes deliberate lies aimed at suppressing votes, a narrow category the state argues gets little constitutional protection[11][13]. The Alliance says it punishes a sincere legal opinion about who should be eligible, and that a criminal penalty hanging over that opinion silences it[1][9][10]. The panel sided with the Alliance for now, writing that "the government cannot endorse one view and criminalize the other without implicating the First Amendment"[1].
The Event
On Thursday, August 20, 2026, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Ellison that Minn. Stat. § 211B.075 likely violates the First Amendment as applied to the plaintiffs' speech[1][2]. Judge David Stras wrote for a panel that also included Judges Raymond Gruender and Jonathan Kobes[2]. The panel reversed the district court, which had denied the Alliance a preliminary injunction, and remanded with instructions to enter one barring the state from enforcing the law against the Alliance and its members[1][2]. The statute's 60-day enforcement window before the November 2026 general election opens September 4[4].
Undisputed Facts
- Minn. Stat. § 211B.075 bars any person, within 60 days of an election, from knowingly transmitting materially false information with intent to impede or prevent another person from voting, and specifically lists information about "the qualifications for or restrictions on voter eligibility"[5].
- A violation is a gross misdemeanor, and the attorney general, a county attorney, or an injured person may also sue for damages, with a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per violation[5].
- Minnesota's Restore the Vote Act took effect July 1, 2023 and restores the right to vote to a person with a felony conviction during any period when that person is not incarcerated for the offense[6][7].
- In Schroeder v. Simon (2023), the Minnesota Supreme Court held that the state constitution does not itself restore the vote on release from prison; restoration requires an affirmative act by the Legislature or another government mechanism[6].
- A federal district judge dismissed the Alliance's challenge to § 211B.075 in October 2024, upholding the law at that stage[8][11][13].
- On August 20, 2026, the 8th Circuit reversed and ordered a preliminary injunction covering the Alliance's speech[1][2].
- The August 20 order is preliminary relief for the named plaintiffs; the statute remains on the books and enforceable against others, and the case returns to the district court[2][4].
The Pressure
Strip away the moralizing and blame. What structural realities persist regardless of which narrative wins?
- Two different questions, one label
- "Felon voting" names two separate fights that keep getting merged. One is who is eligible — settled in Minnesota by the 2023 Restore the Vote Act and the Schroeder ruling[6][7]. The other is what people may say about eligibility — the only question the 8th Circuit decided[1][2]. The Alliance lost the first fight and is now winning ground in the second.
- The calendar is the leverage
- The statute only operates in the 60 days before an election[5]. That window opens Sept. 4, 2026[4]. Both sides know a preliminary ruling issued in August effectively decides the 2026 cycle no matter what the district court does later — which is why relief that is legally provisional is practically final for this election.
- Whoever holds the office holds the enforcement power
- A criminal ban on election falsehoods is enforced by an attorney general and county attorneys, all elected[5]. That is the structural reason free-speech lawyers on both left and right distrust these statutes: the same text is a shield or a weapon depending on who won the last election[1][12].
- Litigation as a campaign channel
- The Alliance's challenge is the second of its suits against the 2023 DFL voting package[11]. Ellison and Simon have built public records on defending that package, including a 2023 intervention over a county judge's instructions to probationers[7][14]. For both sides, the courtroom and the campaign are the same arena.
Material realityMinnesota law is unchanged on who may vote: if you are not currently incarcerated for a felony, you may cast a ballot, probation or supervised release included[6][7]. About 55,000 people regained that right when the 2023 law took effect[7]. Section 211B.075 is still valid law, still a gross misdemeanor, and still enforceable against every person and group in Minnesota except the named plaintiffs[2][4][5]. What actually changed on August 20 is narrow and real: one conservative group can now say, during the 60 days before the November midterms, that felons under sentence cannot vote — without risking prosecution — while the state's own election officials remain free to say the opposite[1][4]. The case is not over. It goes back to the district court, and the state can seek further review[2].
Narrative as a weaponThree groups are shaping how this lands. The Alliance and its litigation shops — the Upper Midwest Law Center and the Liberty Justice Center, both conservative public-interest firms — want you to see a state that made a legal opinion into a crime, and they quote the panel's "endorse one view and criminalize the other" line to make it stick[1][9][10]. Minnesota's Democratic attorney general and secretary of state want you to see a narrow anti-suppression tool aimed only at knowing lies told to keep specific people home, now weakened right before an election[5][7]. Left-leaning outlets have converged on a third frame — not the law, but the asymmetry: one group protected, everyone else not[4]. Each frame is built on something true. The most common error across all of them is scope: several headlines describe a preliminary injunction for four plaintiffs as if a statute had been struck down statewide. The phrase to check in any coverage is whether it distinguishes what the court blocked from whom it blocked it for.
How Each Side Sees It
Each major actor’s view — how it frames things, its underlying incentive, and how it’s materially affected. Tap a side to read it.
Frames it asTheir case is not "we want to lie." It is that the state has criminalized one side of a live legal argument. The Alliance has argued for years that a felon on supervised release is still under sentence and should not vote — a reading the Minnesota Supreme Court partly echoed in 2023 when it said the constitution alone does not restore the franchise[6][9][10]. The Legislature then chose the other rule, and the Alliance says § 211B.075 now makes stating the losing side a crime[9]. Their second argument is about the shape of the law: a fraud statute punishes lies that cause someone real harm, but this one punishes a knowing misstatement even if no listener acts on it at all[1]. Third, they invoke the classic remedy for false speech — more speech. The state can simply tell voters the truth about eligibility, and the panel agreed that counter-speech was the less restrictive option available[1].
WhyThe group wants to keep campaigning against the 2023 Restore the Vote Act and to litigate the DFL's voting-law expansions generally; this is its second major challenge to that package[11]. A favorable First Amendment ruling clears its messaging before the midterms and strengthens its hand in the underlying eligibility fight[1][4].
Impact on themIt gains a court order letting it speak during the 60-day window opening Sept. 4 without criminal exposure, while other groups have none[4]. It also gains a published 8th Circuit opinion its lawyers can cite in other states[1][2].
Frames it asThe state's strongest case is that § 211B.075 does not touch opinion at all. It requires three things at once: the statement must be materially false, the speaker must know it is false, and the speaker must intend to stop someone from voting[5]. On that reading, saying "felons should not be able to vote" is fully legal; saying "you are a felon on probation, so you will be committing a crime if you show up" is what the statute reaches. The state argues that kind of targeted falsehood is closer to fraud than to debate — it works by making a specific person believe a specific untrue thing about their own legal status. Officials also point to the practical stakes: a wrongly deterred voter cannot be un-deterred after Election Day, so counter-speech arrives too late for that person. A federal judge accepted enough of this to dismiss the challenge in 2024[8][11][13].
WhyEllison and Simon have built a record on defending Minnesota's voting expansions and intervening against attempts to narrow them, including a 2023 intervention over a Mille Lacs County judge's handling of the restored-vote law[7][14]. Simon is on the 2026 ballot, which gives the fight a direct electoral dimension.
Impact on themThe state loses enforcement authority over one prominent group during the pre-election window and now faces a published appellate opinion against a law the Legislature passed in 2023[1][4][5]. Its options are further district-court litigation, en banc review, or a Supreme Court petition.
Frames it asVoting-rights advocates argue this group is the one with something concrete at risk. Roughly 55,000 people regained the vote when the 2023 law took effect, many of them uncertain about their own status after years of being told they were ineligible[6][7]. The argument is that confusion, not persuasion, is the mechanism: a person on probation who hears that voting is a crime does not weigh the argument, they stay home. Advocates note Minnesota's own history here — the state had to go to court in 2023 when a Mille Lacs County judge told probationers not to vote[7][14]. On this view the ruling protects speech aimed at the least-informed voters in the state, right before the window when it matters most[4].
WhyAdvocacy organizations want turnout among newly eligible voters and want the 2023 law to be seen as settled rather than contested[7].
Impact on themTheir legal right to vote is unchanged by this ruling — the 8th Circuit decided a speech question, not an eligibility question[1][2]. What changes is the information environment they face between Sept. 4 and Election Day[4].
Frames it asThis camp cares about the precedent more than the parties. Their core point is that the Supreme Court has repeatedly refused to carve false statements out of the First Amendment as a category, and that letting a state prosecute election falsehoods hands the enforcement power to whoever holds office[1][12]. The analogy they use is symmetry: a statute that can reach a conservative group's claim about felon eligibility can, under a different administration, reach a progressive group's claim about voter-ID rules. Some in this camp still think Minnesota should win on the narrow facts — a deliberate lie told to a specific voter to keep them home — while agreeing the panel was right that criminal penalties are a blunt instrument here[1][12].
WhyTo keep the category of punishable false speech narrow, regardless of which side benefits in a given case.
Impact on themThe opinion gives them a published appellate holding that a state election-falsehood law failed strict scrutiny — a scrutiny standard courts apply to content-based speech rules, under which the government must show a compelling interest and the narrowest possible means[1].
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The Bias Ledger average rating 4.7
The same story, as framed by outlets across the spectrum, ordered least to most biased. The bias score (1 = straight, 10 = heavily spun) is an AI assessment of that framing — click an outlet to see its track record. The tell is the word choice or omission that reveals the angle.
| Outlet | Vantage | Bias | How they frame it | The tell |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bloomberg Law | U.S. center, legal trade | 3 | "Minnesota 'Election Disinformation' Ban Blocked by Appeals Court" — leads with the strict-scrutiny holding and the pre-midterm timing | "Ban ... Blocked" and the phrase "clearing an anti-felon voting group to message before the midterms" both read broader than the actual relief, which was a preliminary injunction limited to the plaintiffs. The legal detail in the body is precise; the headline is not. |
| Reason (Opinion) | U.S. libertarian, legal commentary | 3 | "Court Partly Blocks Minnesota Law Restricting False Statements About 'Restrictions on Voter Eligibility'" | The most accurate headline in the set — "partly" carries the scope of the relief. The tell is selection, not distortion: the Volokh Conspiracy is a libertarian law blog that reliably foregrounds speech-protective rulings and quotes the opinion's best lines at length, with little on the suppression interest the state was defending. |
| MPR News | U.S. center-left, Minnesota public radio | 4 | "Appeals Court gives Minnesota group leeway to discourage voting by nonincarcerated felons" | "Leeway to discourage voting" frames the outcome by its downstream effect on turnout rather than by the legal holding. Accurate as to what the Alliance wants to say, but it centers the consequence the state warned about instead of the First Amendment question the panel decided. |
| Minnesota Reformer | U.S. left, nonprofit States Newsroom affiliate funded largely by progressive donors | 5 | Covered the 2024 dismissal as "Federal judge throws out challenge to Minnesota election misinformation law" | "Throws out" signals a challenge without merit — a framing the 8th Circuit later undercut. Useful for the DFL-legislation context it supplies, but its through-line treats the 2023 voting laws as the baseline and the litigation as attack. |
| Democracy Docket | U.S. left, Democratic-aligned election-law site founded by attorney Marc Elias | 6 | Covered the earlier stage as "Minnesota Law Prohibiting Election Disinformation and Voter Intimidation Upheld by Federal Judge" | Names the law by its purpose ("prohibiting election disinformation and voter intimidation") rather than its text, which builds the state's characterization into every reference. Readers relying on this framing were positioned to read the 2026 reversal as a loss for anti-intimidation enforcement rather than a First Amendment holding. |
| Raw Story | U.S. left | 7 | "Right-wing group exempted from voting lie ban by court — and no one else" | "Exempted" recasts a constitutional ruling as a favor granted, and "voting lie ban" states as settled the very characterization the case contests. The underlying observation — that only this plaintiff holds an order during the 60-day window — is factually correct and is the sharpest point in the coverage. |
References
- Minnesota 'Election Disinformation' Ban Blocked by Appeals Court — Bloomberg Law · U.S. center; subscription legal trade publication owned by Bloomberg
- Court Partly Blocks Minnesota Law Restricting False Statements About 'Restrictions on Voter Eligibility' — Reason · U.S. libertarian; the Volokh Conspiracy is a law-professor blog hosted by Reason, published by the Reason Foundation
- Appeals Court gives Minnesota group leeway to discourage voting by nonincarcerated felons — MPR News · U.S. center-left; Minnesota public radio, member- and foundation-funded
- Right-wing group exempted from voting lie ban by court — and no one else — Raw Story · U.S. left, advocacy-inflected digital outlet
- Sec. 211B.075 MN Statutes — Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes · Primary source; official state statutory text
- Schroeder v. Simon (Minn. 2023) — Justia · Primary source; full text of the Minnesota Supreme Court opinion
- Court of appeals blocks Mille Lacs County judge from undermining Restore the Vote law — Minnesota Secretary of State · Primary source; official release from a DFL statewide officeholder, a party to related litigation
- Minnesota law on voting misinformation survives legal challenge — MinnPost · U.S. center-left; Minnesota nonprofit newsroom
- Federal District of Minnesota Upholds Controversial Election Speech Code Law — Upper Midwest Law Center · Conservative public-interest litigation nonprofit; counsel for the plaintiffs — a party, not a news source
- Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Ellison — case page — Liberty Justice Center · Libertarian/conservative litigation nonprofit; co-counsel for the plaintiffs — a party, not a news source
- Minnesota Law Prohibiting Election Disinformation and Voter Intimidation Upheld by Federal Judge — Democracy Docket · U.S. left; election-law site founded by Democratic attorney Marc Elias
- Outlawing Campaign Lies Treads on Free Speech — Courthouse News Service · U.S. center; independent legal news wire
- Federal judge throws out challenge to Minnesota election misinformation law — Minnesota Reformer · U.S. left; States Newsroom nonprofit network, funded largely by progressive donors
- Attorney General Ellison intervenes to stop Mille Lacs County judge from interfering with legal right to vote — Minnesota Attorney General's Office · Primary source; official release from a DFL officeholder who is the named defendant in this case