The focus of my anger at the right has shifted in the past couple weeks. Where I once had vitriol and disgust about the Marriage amendment, that’s all been replaced by this voter id amendment we’re voting on here in Minnesota.
Gay marriage will work itself out. The Gay hating Archbishop around here needs a win of some kind, his church is consolidating parishes and closing churches faster than Department Stores as their members die off and are not replaced. 60% of kids today, and by kids I’m saying 30 and under, don’t attend any church, and certainly aren’t going to be attracted to an institution that offers a message of hate and damnation. Who needs that.
I digress.
What I’m really upset about this election is the voter ID thing.
If this were a legitimate issue, if voter fraud were a problem in Minnesota there would be non-partisan support for this.
The Pro Site claims that our elections in Minnesota are among the dirtiest in the Nation. They quote 100+ convictions for voting irregularities in this state. In the last 4 years there have been 113 convictions in Minnesota. How filthy is that? Just as a reference that means we’re running a .004% fraud rate. Thats over 1:25,000 votes that were fraudulent. I can see how our election integrity is at risk around here. I know I feel threatened. Oh, btw.. of those 113, 112 were felons voting. Felons voting BTW, would not be corrected by this amendment, since they have ids.
The Pro People claim that this amendment would allow active military and elderly folks to use their military ID’s and expired drivers licenses to vote. Bullshit. We have no idea what folks are going to be able to use to vote, this amendment doesn’t tell us that. It only says “valid ID”. The legislature will have to figure out what valid means.
Forget about voter suppression, which I happen to believe is exactly what is behind this amendment. Since when is it a good idea to add a law that’s going to add regulation to something and leave the details of how the law will be enforced out of the law? The legislature could, the way this law is written, mandate that only Passports are valid ID. It doesn’t say.
The arguments on this from the left anticipate that we will follow the Indiana model and force driver licenses or “free” government issued IDs. Id’s that are only free if you have your raised seal birth certificate. Now if you can afford the $30.00 to order, and assuming you weren’t born at home in the South before 1970, there may not even be one in existence for you. So you’re going to have to go to court and this quickly becomes a very complicated process with high hurdles. According the Pro Site.. at least before they took it down, “voting is a privilege not a right”. That says it all right there. Privileges for the privileged. Fact is if they can make it impossible for 10% of the 200,000 voters in this state who do not have legal id’s, the calculus is that it’s probably 80% Democratic voters.
Fact is, voting is a right. This amendment is a red herring designed to do two things; get a few percentages of the Democratic electorate away from the polls, and rally the conservative base by drumming up fears of illegals brown people and mean old felons voting in droves and delegitimizing our elections. ‘cause that, just ain’t happening.
I strongly urge a vote against this. Even my conservative friends, this is a baldy written law that does not belong in our constitution. Lets do the right thing here.
My husband has been subjected to multiple conversations with his brother which consist of the brother haranguing him to vote for the ID amendment. Husband has no intention of doing so. Brother cannot justify the law as it is written (it may not be perfect, but we can fix it up if needed in the future) but has some innate fear that everyone is a cheat and this is the only way to ensure that all of those cheats will be kept in check. Brother is an educated man, but does not seem to appreciate that this is the Constiution that we are diddling with…..I just cannot figure out what these people are thinking. Perhaps the answer is that they are not.
All you need to know about the motivation behind this Republican-sponsored initiative is in this clip of Pennsylvania House Republican leader Mike Turzai: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOT1bRYdK8
This is, at best, a solution in search of a problem. At worst, it is voter suppression. A State Constitution should protect individual rights, not strip them from its citizens.
I really appreciate your integrity. I’ve been arguing with so many “conservatives” that support this simply because it’s a republican initiative regardless of the facts or the inconsistencies with conservative ideology. This amendment converts the right to vote into a privilege controlled by the state, if you have their permission to vote in the form of an ID, and only if you have that permission, does your vote get counted on election day. Furthermore your creating an entirely new layer of election day bureaucracy that will do more harm than good as far as voter fraud is concerned.
I enjoy your writing thoroughly. I wish you would be consistent, however, and follow style conventions: ID vs. id, unnecessary capitalization (Pro Site and Passport), etc.
It only takes a few more minutes to review and get it right before publishing.
I’ve never claimed this blog was well written. If all you found was conventions I’m doing pretty good. Usually it’s full of spelling and punctuation too/