The UpTake and Debate Minnesota are teaming up to provide a live video feed of the only scheduled debate on the Voter ID Constitutional Amendment. Tonight’s debate starts at 7 p.m. and features Minnesota Majority’s Dan McGrath arguing for the amendment and Doran Schrantz of ISAIAH arguing on behalf of Our Vote Our Future against the amendment.
Watch it here:
The debate over the amendment continues in Greater Minnesota newspapers. At the St. Cloud Times, Jack Wimmer writes in Don't change our Constitution:
. . . Back in 1967 I was drafted into the military and no picture ID was required for entry into the military. In 1968 I found myself in a war zone and did not need a picture ID for a ticket to get there. Now, 40 four years later, a group of legislators led by Sen. Michelle Fischbach are asking me to vote for a constitutional amendment that would require me to show a photo ID to vote.Why? Because of 20 cases of voter fraud? What's next, a study on beer consumption in Minnesota so they can take away my beer.
It is obvious that the proponents of the constitutional amendment want to put up a roadblock and make it more difficult for the minorities and underpriviledged to vote. What I find shameful is that these same proponents show no concern for these same minorities and underpriviledged that serve in the military. I wonder how many politicians would be ready to die for there country to protect the constitutional right of someone to spread their religious and racial hate?
I have listened to the proponents of the voter photo ID question and I liken it kicking a dead skunk. The more they talk the smellier it gets.
Remember on Election Day that politicians come and go, but the Constitution stays. Let's not mess it up.
"Kicking a dead skunk." Bluestem may steal that. At the West Central Tribune, there's Barbara Edwards writing in Voter ID would create problems:
If the Republicans passed all the voter restrictions that they have proposed, due to 86 cases of fraud in five years, approximately 5 million voters will be disenfranchised throughout the United States.
We don’t know the full details because next year’s legislature will pass the law to carry out the amendment, but we can expect that it will mimic that of Pennsylvania’s, since Mary Kiffmeyer, who introduced ours, is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, as is Darryl Metcalf, who introduced the law in Pennsylvania. ALEC is the group that puts corporation lobbyists and conservative legislators together with cookie-cutter legislation.
Many people who thought they had a photo ID discovered that under the little-noticed restrictions written into the Pennsylvania law, they didn’t. College students who thought that their student ID was acceptable learned it wasn’t. A different section indicated that all IDs had to have an expiration date, and 80 percent of the colleges don’t use an expiration date.
Imagine the surprise of one of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court judges when he looked at his own ID and discovered that it didn’t have that missing ingredient. Joe Sestak, a retired three star admiral and a former member of Congress, has a military ID – without an expiration date. . . .
Read the rest at the WCT. Up in Alexandria, writes in A pseudo-solution in search of a problem:
If you choose to ignore the fact that between 2000 and 2010, of the 649 million votes cast nationwide in general elections, there were 13 credible cases of in-person voter impersonation, or less than .00000002 percent of all votes cast, then you might think that those urging the passage of Minnesota’s so-called voter ID law have a point.
Or, if you choose to ignore the fact that, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, from 5 to 10 million voters, mainly among the young, the elderly, the disabled, and those belonging to ethnic minorities risk being disenfranchised by such a law, then you might think that they have a point.
If, on the other hand, you see this proposed law for what it clearly is: an insidious attack on the very notion of democracy and nothing more than partisan trickery, then it is you who have a compelling point, and common sense and common decency dictate that you vote no on this thinly veiled attempt at keeping a sizable number of eligible voters from exercising their constitutional rights at the polls.
In Amendment costly for taxpayers, Barbara Finley-Shea of Lyle writes:
As Minnesotans ponder the proposed constitutional amendment on photo voter IDs, one issue that’s rarely included in the discussion is the financial cost, paid directly by taxpayers through higher property taxes. The experience of states that rushed to require photo voter IDs is that actual costs far exceeded those anticipated.
The voter ID amendment is an unfunded mandate, for which almost 90 percent of the expense would come from local government. This means the cost of paying for an expensive new voting system would result in higher property taxes. . . .
That's a good sample of the sentiment.
To learn about opportunities talk to your neighbors and friends about why they should vote no on voter restriction, visit Our Vote, Our Future. To learn more about the consequences of the amendment for Greater Minnesota, check out Greater MN Counts. Like the Facebook page Minnesotans Vote No Twice.
As I watched Karlstad get hit with an unseasonably-early five inches of snow, it occurred to me that it is in Kittson County -- and if this amendment had been in effect today, they likely wouldn't have been able to pay for snow removal because they would have been forced to shell out $730,000 -- or $160 for every single resident of the county -- to pay for something whose net effect is to keep voters from voting:
http://my.firedoglake.com/phoenix/2012/09/01/mn-gops-voter-id-plan-would-cost-two-rural-counties-nearly-1-million/
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Oct 04, 2012 at 10:57 PM