Archived Story
Editorial: Voter ID is still a bad idea
Published 9:40am Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Minnesota lawmakers have completed the task of putting Voter ID on the November ballot as a constitutional amendment.
Polls have made it clear that Minnesotans are likely to approve the amendment, requiring that every voter show photo identification at the polls. Settled though the question seems, we still hope voters will think twice about adding yet another complication to something that is supposed to be a right.
The attitude of most seems to be that showing identification to vote is no big deal, because it is already required for so many other things. But that’s exactly our concern. Our society is rapidly becoming one in which the assumption is always that someone is not who he says he is, or that some trick or scam is under way. In the case of voting, there have been almost no cases of fraud in our state. So why add a restriction that is not needed? There’s no reason to do so.
Like most Minnesotans, we don’t object to verifying identities when there’s good reason to do so. But when there’s little indication that there’s reason to suspect a problem, adding to an atmosphere of distrust seems like a bad idea.
What!!!!! voter fraud say it isn’t so, there is NO voter fraud in a progressive world or so they would have you believe. I am glad this is an opinion because if it was based on facts this would be untrue and borderline propaganda.
Facts:
1. The non-partisan, constitutional group Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty found same day voters had some serious issues
The errors ranged from not checking the block to indicate the voter was a “New Voter” or something more egregious like failing to certify that the person was a “qualified elector” or with forms missing signatures and “proof of residency” information. On some forms, there was no indication that poll workers verified anything about the person registering to vote.
In addition to those errors, the study revealed almost anything can be used to prove Wisconsin Residency. A voter was allowed to use an Illinois traffic ticket to prove Wisconsin Residency. Several voters with no other apparent proof of residency were allowed to register using “out of state” credentials. Even the act of corroborating was not without errors and over 100 voters who needed a corroborator also corroborated for another voter.
According to Larry Gamble, the group’s Communications Director, “we discovered 3,739 forms with errors. That 33.7% error rate is high enough to question the entire election process and raises doubts about having the accuracy and accountability required to properly manage elections.”
2. MANCHESTER, N.H. — Video footage provided exclusively to The Daily Caller shows election workers in New Hampshire giving out ballots in the names of dead voters at multiple voting precincts during the state’s primary election on Tuesday.
The bombshell video is the work of conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe and his organization, Project Veritas.
Voters in the Granite State are not required to present identification to vote. O’Keefe’s investigators were able to obtain ballots under the names of dead voters at polling locations Tuesday by simply asking for them, he said.
“Live free or die,” an election worker told one of the investigators in the video. “This is New Hampshire. No ID needed.”
3. While NAACP President Benjamin Jealous lashed out at new state laws requiring photo ID for voting, an NAACP executive sits in prison, sentenced for carrying out a massive voter fraud scheme.
In a story ignored by the national media, in April a Tunica County, Miss., jury convicted NAACP official Lessadolla Sowers on 10 counts of fraudulently casting absentee ballots. Sowers is identified on an NAACP website as a member of the Tunica County NAACP Executive Committee.
Sowers received a five-year prison term for each of the 10 counts, but Circuit Court Judge Charles Webster permitted Sowers to serve those terms concurrently, according to the Tunica Times, the only media outlet to cover the sentencing.
4. In Wisconsin, Milwaukee Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf issued a search warrant for Florida SEIU organizer Clarence Haynes declaring there is “probable cause that Mr. H [Clarence Haynes] voted without the proper qualifications as an elector when he cast a ballot on April 5, 2011.”
Documents exclusively obtained by Media Trackers revealed that Clarence Haynes, along with two other out-of-state SEIU organizers, voted using the address of a Residence Inn in Glendale in the April 5, 2011 spring election.
5. Yesterday, the Yuma Sun reported that two organizations Mi Familia Vota and One Vote Arizona submitted more than 3,000 voter registrations in Yuma County right before the deadline for registering voters. The groups submitted over 20,000 registrations statewide.
What the Yuma Sun did not tell you is that over 65% of these last minute registrations were invalid due to the registrant not being a citizen, a wrong/invalid address, or a false signature.
Yuma County is located in Arizona’s 7th District. Currently, far left Arizona boycotter Rep. Raul Grijalva is caught in a tight race with Republican rocket scientist Ruth McClung. A few thousand votes could change the outcome of the race between the popular rocket scientist Ruth McClung and the socialist boycotter Raul Grijalva
There is NO voter fraud here, Nothing to see here move along, move along, on a side note it is interesting to see party affiliation and allegations of voter fraud, do you suppose there is a direct collelation between the two?
How many college kids right now, tonight in this state are either at a liquor store buying some beer or at a bar drinking some beers all illegal using a fake photo i.d.?
just tonight?
This whole thing is a joke!
Wheres those jobs ideas the republicants were going to work tirelessly on?
Using Al’s logic, perhaps we should stop checking IDs for liquor purchases since the IDs might be fake. The Tribune’s logic supports this idea, since the overall majority of alcohol purchases are probably to those over 21 anyway.
What ward do you live in, Al? I know it’s unlikely, but how would you feel if someone “stole” your vote, and nobody stopped them? What if was a (gasp) REPUBLICAN who stole your vote?
That said, I am neither Republican nor Democrat, but I think requiring ID for voters when possible (the exception being absentee voting, unless there was a reasonable way to make it work) is a good idea.
Hey Al….
The joke here is your terrible non response to the facts and incomprehensible reasoning to support terminally flawed logic. : )
Missing the point boys. If a person wants to get a beer illegally with a photo i.d they can. If a person is set on voting illegally with a photo I.d I am pretty sure they can!
It’s politics
Keep our attention diverted, that’s the GOP plan