In Dogwhistle much? Mary Kiffmeyer's retroactive reasoning for introducing photo ID amendments, Bluestem scrutinized comments the state representative from Big Lake made to the New Ulm Journal in Kiffmeyer touts reasons for Voter ID amendment.
Yesterday, Brian Lambert included Josh Moniz's article in the Morning Glean at Minnpost.
The article also caught the eye of Gustavus Adolphus College math professor Max Hailperin, who writes to the editors in Kiffmeyer's misinformation:
Mary Kiffmeyer uses The Journal to tell some whoppers about her proposed constitutional amendment regarding election law.
Rep. Kiffmeyer justifies her use of a constitutional amendment rather than ordinary statute by claiming to have seen "U.S Attorney-General Eric Holder challenging Voter ID laws in other states for conflict with respective state constitutions." But in fact Holder has no authority to enforce state constitutions and has made no attempt to do so. His challenges to other states' election laws have been under the federal Voting Rights Act and would have applied equally had the challenged provisions been inserted into state constitutions.
Kiffmeyer also claims to have "worked hard to get provisional balloting in the amendment because of how highly she valued people's right to vote." But in fact provisional balloting was in the amendment from the moment Rep. Kiffmeyer introduced it and no attempt was ever made to remove it. That's because without it, a strict photo ID requirement would be struck down by federal courts.
The Journal reports that Kiffmeyer "was unable to source her numbers during the interview." Her alarming statistic about "unreachable and unaccounted for" election-day registrants in fact comes from an unofficial analysis by the lobbyist Dan McGrath. As the representative ought to know, the Secretary of State's office refuted this number with official data they provided to the legislature.
The costly ballot measure will restrict voters, rather than security "ballot integrity." Stick up for this fundamental right of American citizens by voting "No" in November on the photo ID amendment.
Photo: Mary Kiffmeyer drafts the New Ulm battery to fight the War on Voters.
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I must confess a technical error in this letter to the editor, though it does not affect the substance of my argument. I claimed that provisional balloting was in the proposed amendment "from the moment Rep. Kiffmeyer introduced it." Actually, the "as introduced" version did not mention provisional balloting; it shows up first in the author's "delete all" amendment (substitute text) brought to the first committee hearing and adopted as a matter of course before any debate on the bill commenced. (The same was true for Sen. Newman's earlier companion bill.)
Posted by: Max Hailperin | Sep 02, 2012 at 08:53 AM