Still work ahead to resolve differences between House and Senate Bills

In this year’s legislative environment, even modest advancements in election integrity should be considered a tremendous feat. On Wednesday, the Minnesota House passed HF894, the omnibus election bill.

Since the start of session, Minnesota Majority has been heavily involved in negotiating key points in the bill with other interested parties and among Republican and Democrat lawmakers on the House Elections Committee. With constant support from our members contacting their legislators, the result was a bill that will improve the integrity of Minnesota’s election system – and the bill’s chief author, Rep. Steve Simon is a Democrat who opposed the Voter ID Amendment last year.

Read the rest at Minnesota Majority.

While there is one omnibus election bill moving in the House which has potential to improve some parts of Minnesota’s election laws, as far as the integrity of the system goes, several threats remain. The biggest threat is the early voting proposal.

Read the rest and see what you can do at Minnesota Majority.

Ramsey County Denies Access to Public Election Records needed to Detect and Prove Voter Fraud

After the 2008 election, Minnesota Majority’s examination of public election records uncovered over 1,000 voter fraud cases that would otherwise have gone undetected and the discovery led to a record number of successful prosecutions, but now, Ramsey County is denying access to those very same public records. In a letter from the Ramsey County attorney’s office, Minnesota Majority’s lawful request for access to the same kinds of documents the group received before was denied.

The request was made under Minnesota’s Data Practices Act (Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13), which is the state’s equivalent of the federal Freedom of Information Act and requires state and local governments to make all government data and documents available for public inspection, unless specifically classified by statute as “non-public” or “private.”

“The county attorney’s office used some flimsy legal excuses that our attorneys agree are merit-less,” said Minnesota Majority president Dan McGrath. “It begs the question, what is Mansky trying to hide? Our election system has never been so opaque.”

Read the rest at Minnesota Majority.

By Doug Belden

Minnesota must check the eligibility of voters who register on Election Day before their ballots are counted or set up a process for others to do so, a voters’ rights group is arguing in federal court.

Otherwise, “we’re going to lose the integrity of our elections,” said Erick Kaardal, attorney for the Minnesota Voters Alliance and other plaintiffs.

But the state has no obligation to verify eligibility before counting votes, nor would doing so be practical, countered Assistant Attorney General Nathan Hartshorn, representing Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Attorney General Lori Swanson.

The two sides argued for two hours Friday, June 22, before U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank in St. Paul.

Frank said he would rule within 60 days.

Kaardal said the state has data showing felons and others who are ineligible to vote. It uses that information to check people who register in advance, he said, but not those who register on Election Day.

Even if a problem is found later, there’s no “clawback provision” to pull out and invalidate a ballot from an ineligible voter, Kaardal said.

Read the rest at the Pioneer Press.

Read more analysis at Let Freedom Ring.

From a Minnesota Majority position memo:

In 2008, after the US Senate race was ultimately decided by just 312 votes, it was discovered that over 1,000 ineligible convicted felons had unlawfully voted in the general election. Nearly 200 have since been convicted and approximately 100 more are awaiting trial. Most ineligible felon voters were never charged because they pled ignorance of the law and in Minnesota’s election statutes, this is actually a valid defense. The standard for conviction is “ineligible voter knowingly votes.” If an ineligible voter maintains ignorance, it’s very difficult to prove otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. No one is convicted for “accidental” voter fraud.

Now that the problem of ineligible voters has been discovered by a non-governmental non-profit group, some see
legalizing felon voters as the solution. This is akin to determining that too many people are robbing banks and solving the problem by legalizing bank robbery.

Why are felons denied the right to vote?

Article VII of Minnesota’s Constitution is explicit that people convicted of felonies are not to be entitled or permitted to vote in any election in the state. It states in part, “The following persons shall not be entitled or permitted to vote at any election in the state… a person who has been convicted of treason or felony, unless restored to civil rights; a person under guardianship, or a person who is insane or not mentally competent.” The framers had good reasons for this.

1. Felons are the most anti-social of all criminals. Their crimes are of the worst, most harmful and offensive nature. Murder, rape, robbery, gross fraud and conspiracy are examples of felony crimes. People who have demonstrated such gross disregard for the law, society and government should not be allowed to participate. They are outlaws, living outside the law and thus should not be allowed a hand in creating the laws that the law-abiding live under.
2. Besides lawmakers, Judges, county prosecutors and sheriffs are elected positions. It is in the felon’s interest to elect lenient judges and incompetent or corrupt prosecutors and law enforcement officers. Candidates for sheriff should not be in a position to try to solicit the votes of felons under the supervision of the Department of Corrections.
3. Deprivation of rights is the primary means of punishing and deterring crime in the United States. Felons on probation are prohibited from carrying a firearm, associating with certain people, entering certain establishments, may be subject to curfews and prohibitions of drug and alcohol use in addition to being prohibited from voting, until they have demonstrated their rehabilitation by successful completion of their sentence. At that point, they are considered to have “paid their debt to society” and are welcomed back into the civic process and their rights are restored. Many convicted felons never serve a day in jail. The deprivation of rights while on probation is the entirety of their punishment – should felons be punished for their crimes at all?

Even if the legislature determined that restoring voting rights to convicted felons prior to the completion of their
sentence was desirable, it would likely require an amendment to Minnesota’s Constitution.

The way to prevent corruption of our election process through the participation of ineligible voters, including felons and also non-citizens is to require all voters be subject to equal verification standards before voting. Currently, people who register more than 20 days before an election are verified as eligible before voting. Election Day registration currently requires no verification of eligibility, however, allowing may invalid votes to be cast and counted.

Minnesota is a forgiving state that leaves open the possibility of redemption. Convicted felons are restored to their
rights immediately upon successful completion of their sentence, including supervised release or probation. Our
probation system offers felons a chance to demonstrate their rehabilitation and integration into society. If they can do that, they can vote again. That’s current law and the mandate of the Constitution. It may not be easy, but it’s just.

Download the printable 1-page policy position memo (pdf).

This short video explores some examples of how Minnesota’s vouching law may have been exploited by organized fraudulent voters in recent years.

Vouching is the process by which one voter vouches for the identity and residence of another voter who does not possess any acceptable form of identification but wishes to register and vote on Election Day.

Minnesota’s unusual combination of election day registration and vouching permits unverified voters to cast live (rather than provisional) ballots that are immediately tabulated.

The proposed Voter ID Constitutional Amendment would eliminate vouching as a means of identifying Election Day registrants.

President Barack Obama got his start as a community organizer, working with groups like ACORN and other corrupt activist groups. ACORN eventually collapsed under the weight of its own corruption, but their tactics live on.

Organizing for America, the DNC project to reelect Barack Obama, is working to reelect the President. The President isn’t very popular right now for any number of reasons, Obamacare, the economy, unemployment, his seeming fetish for apologizing to people who hate us or kill our troops, $5+ trillion in new debt, etc., etc.

Whatever the case, Organizing for America has a steep hill to climb in front of it. Given the President’s affinity for, and past with ACORN, it’s not surprising that OfA would be caught using ACORN tactics.

Read the rest at Big Government.

By “Gateways_Niece”

Don’t think for one second that the 2012 election is going to be squeaky clean. Even CNN is starting to report on this fraud!

(CNN Video from 2008)

Chad Groening at OneNewsNow reported:

Even though it was supposedly stripped of federal funding in 2009, a non-partisan government corruption watchdog says the disgraced organization known as ACORN is alive and well and still thriving on government dollars.

Following the 2009 voter registration scandals surrounding the organization, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) transformed itself into a number of smaller organizations with new names, such as Affordable Housing Centers of America and the New York Agency for Community Affairs.

Read the rest at Gateway Pundit.

WASHINGTON – More than 24 million voter-registration records in the United States— about one in eight — are inaccurate, out-of-date or duplicates.  Nearly 2.8 million people are registered in two or more states, and perhaps 1.8 million registered voters are dead.

Those estimates, from a report published today by the non-partisan Pew Center on the States, portray a largely paper-based  system that is outmoded, expensive and error-prone.

“We have a ramshackle registration system in the U.S. It’s a mess. It’s expensive. There isn’t central control over the process,” said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Experts say there’s no evidence that the errors lead to fraud on Election Day. “The perception of the possibility of fraud drives hyper-partisan policymaking,” said David Becker, director of Pew’s election initiatives. But inactive voters do cost money. Inaccurate lists mean wasted money on mailings and extra paper ballots.

Read the rest here.

•  Unverifiable Voters In Minnesota’s Elections
• Ineligible Wards Voting in Crow Wing County 2010 Election
• Felon Voter Fraud Convictions Stemming From Minnesota’s 2008 General Election
• Fraudulent Votes Cast by Ineligible Felons in Minnesota’s 2008 General Election
• More information
• Voter Fraud News Articles