From the amendment’s sponsor Mary Kiffmeyer. She’s persuasive.
I resisted looking at this for a couple days thinking it would be a long written piece. Its from Powerline a blog I generally regard as a hackish GOP outlet.
I’ve snarked about the motives of the GOP around the nation on the various Voter ID laws that have been proposed. I know that diminishing democratic votes is one object of the legislation. I also know that Republicans since the days of the Kennedy Nixon election have been paranoid about registered voters in Chicago graveyards and poor Mexican Americans in Texas being paid five bucks to vote for LBJ and JFK. Nixon was gracious in defeat despite being cheated out of the Presidency in 1960. See “controversies.”
I think that Democrats ought to bite the bullet and support Voter ID laws that can assure voters a relatively hassle free method of registering to vote.
I ran as a Republican several times from the 1970s to the early 2000’s. I never smelled a whiff of serious fraud. Still, if we’re going to quell the paranoia about fraud its not asking too much to address the issues Mary Kiffmeyer lays out. I’m not sure whether I’ll still vote against the particular constitutional amendment that’s on the Minnesota ballot. I’ll have to research its wording and implication more.
Further I’m intrigued by a recent proposal I heard about proper ID. Why not demand that anyone buying a firearm carry and present a photo ID before purchase?
