After meeting with Republican critics on Thursday, DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said that he will not "take a step backward" on online voter registration.
"To your request that we take this service away from citizens, we cannot agree," Ritchie wrote to Republican legislators.
Last month, Ritchie launched a website that allows Minnesotans to register to vote online.
Since then, Republicans, key Democrats, the state's nonpartisan legal staff and the legislative auditor have raised questions about why he did it without specific legislative enabling language.
He has said he had the authority without legislators' sign-off, thanks to existing Minnesota law.
On Thursday, Ritchie met with Republican Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie; Sen. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson; and Rep. Tim Sanders, R-Blaine, to talk through some of their concerns.
"There are questions that need to be answered," Hann said afterward, stressing the need for assurance that the system is secure. He and the other legislators said that they did not oppose the idea of online registration but that they wanted to see it done right.
The legislators left with the impression that Ritchie would share the internal legal analysis he had done that gave him the assurance that he could create the system without instruction to do so from the Legislature.
