Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie will speak at Gustavus Adolphus College from 12 to 1:30 p.m. Friday, April 9 in The Dive, located on the lower level of the O.J. Johnson Student Union.
Ritchie’s talk is titled “Democracy and You,” and will look to educate students on a number of election issues including student voting rights, becoming involved as an election judge, voter registration issues, and the challenges of voting as a college student. Ritchie will also talk about lessons learned from the last election cycle and the Vote in Honor of a Veteran Program.
As Secretary of State, Ritchie partners with township, city, and county officials to organize elections on behalf of Minnesota’s 3.7 million eligible voters. He also oversees a wide range of services provided by the Office of the Secretary of State including business filings, the archiving of official documents, and appointments to public commissions. He is also responsible for administering Safe at Home – Minnesota’s address confidentiality program.
In the 1980s, Ritchie served in the Minnesota Department of Agriculture working to address the economic crisis threatening family farms and rural communities. He served as the president of the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy from 1988 to 2006. As a result of his non-partisan leadership of the 2008 U.S. Senate recount, Ritchie was named the 2008 Politician of the Year by Politics in Minnesota, the state’s largest political news journal.
Ritchie’s appearance at Gustavus is sponsored by the Political Science Department and the Center for Vocational Reflection.
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