Ramsey County Board against Voter I.D. Amendment

The state’s second most populated county came out against the constitutional amendment on this year’s ballot that will require photo i.d. in order to vote.
by Charlie Leck

The Ramsey County Board, saying photo i.d. voting would likely cost the county 1.25 million dollars to implement the required changes, passed a resolution opposing the constitutional amendment. Essentially, the Board was urging voters to vote against it – to vote NO on the issue.

The Board also voiced displeasure about the changes the law would make in same-day registration. Nearly all observers agree that same-day has worked extremely well in Minnesota over the years and we shouldn’t tamper with it.

The County Board voted 6 to 1 in opposing the amendment.

I vehemently oppose altering the way we vote in Minnesota. We have consistently recorded the highest voter turn-outs in the nation. The law will clearly discriminate against low-incomed, the aged, and against college students who are away from home and don’t have photo i.d. that shows their college addresses. We have found voter fraud to be a problem in less than one-tenth of one-percent of all votes cast here in Minnesota – an amount that would not have effected any election in the state’s history.

Pre-vote opinions on the constitutional amendment have now drawn close to even. A few months ago over 75 percent of voters thought the issue should be passed. A hard, honest campaign against the change has turned around opinions in many parts of the state. Last week, former governor Arne Carlson came out hard against the issue and appeared in a public debate urging voters to say “no” on the issue. He provided assurance that fraud is not an issue in the state and that the implementation of the law would be both unfair and costly. Carlson is a former Republican governor. He certainly, however, cannot be identified with the current crop of rogue Republicans who have hijacked the party for their own radical purposes.

Photo i.d. doesn’t make sense.
It certainly has no place on the Constitution of the State of Minnesota. That idea is asinine. I urge all of my Minnesota readers to vote against the voter i.d. amendment proposal.

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Vote NO on Minnesota’s Voter ID Amendment

    Who would let this character vote, even with photo i.d.?

I cannot strongly enough urge my fellow Minnesotans to vote NO, NO, NO on the constitutional amendment that will require citizens to have photo identification in order to vote. It is unfair and unnecessary!
by Charlie Leck

A state judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that voters will be able to vote even if they lack an ID card. So far, it’s a rebuke of Republican efforts to demand photo-identification by voters when they cast their ballots. So far, it’s a victory for those of us who are trying to prevent such unnecessary (in my opinion) efforts that clearly (in my opinion) disenfranchise a significant number of low-income citizens.

Here’s the story about the Pennsylvania judge’s decision as it appeared in the NY Times yesterday (2 Oct 2012).

We’re facing a constitutional amendment referendum here in Minnesota on 6 November, when we vote, that will call for photo identification at the time of voting.

Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for pushing this issue all over the country. They contend that there are serious voter fraud problems in America. In fact, there are not! Voter fraud in the nation is miniscule and virtually non-existent in in-person voting. What the Republicans are really trying to do is mute a large number of citizens and take their right to vote away from them. Of course, we’re talking here of the poor and many disabled who would find it difficult and too expensive to get photo identification for themselves just so that they can vote.

Here’s a remarkably good editorial from today’s NY Times that explains the problems and the unfairness of such legislation (no less amendments to the constitution). Here’s a tid-bit from the editorial…

“Allowing officials to ask for unneeded ID cards makes little sense, but it fits right in with a law that from the start was based solely on political expediency and not on rational grounds. The fraud that the law purports to reduce does not actually exist, either in Pennsylvania or anywhere else in the country. Republicans made a strenuous effort to impose the ID requirement in swing states that Mr. Obama won in 2008, including Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. One Pennsylvania legislator was caught on video admitting that the law would give the state to Mitt Romney.”

My Minnesota friends (and others around America who may have this question on their voter ballots as well), I urge you to vote NO, NO, NO on this constitutional amendment issue. Again, it is both unfair and unnecessary! It’s going to cause enormous enforcement problems for any states that approve such a procedure and it will also result in many very expensive law suits.

Jon Stewart did a remarkable bit about voter i.d. on his show the other night. It’s very funny and you might enjoy it. Go here to watch... http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-8-2012/wizards-of-i-d-…

Some time ago, I wrote a blog about the voter i.d. law in Mississippi and identified it as one more attempt to resurrect the infamous state poll tax. [You can read it here!]

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If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.