Several years ago, when my Republican colleagues and I attempted to bring forth legislation that provided anti-fraud controls, I can clearly remember the floor debate. In that debate, my Democratic colleagues claimed that fraud was pretty much non-existent and basically mocked us for bringing it up. Some of them went as far as to call fraud "fairy dust."
Well, now that Minnesota has reached $9 billion of fraud and counting and has become the laughingstock of the nation, I think we can all agree that it's time to put that debate to rest. Fraud is absolutely real and we must pass laws with strict controls and accountability measures to put an immediate stop to it.
I say all this because, at the same time we were hearing that financial fraud in our state was fairy dust, we were also hearing (and continue to hear) that election fraud is not existent. What do you think?
I think it's time to get the election fraud "fairy dust detector" out!
Just like many of our state’s financial programs have been designed with huge fraud loopholes in them, many of our election laws are also designed with huge fraud loopholes.
One example that comes to mind is a new election law passed two years ago during the Democrat trifecta where a person can register to vote without providing an actual address. That person can simply say, "I live down by the river," or "I live in a yellow house two blocks away." How does one prevent a person like that from voting in multiple areas of the state?
Another example is one of Minnesota's laws allowing a single person to vouch for the identity of eight voters who have no identification. I don't think I even need to tell you what might go wrong with this scenario!
I joined more than six dozen other state lawmakers in writing a letter urging U.S. Senate Majority Leader Thune and his Republican colleagues to take immediate steps to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
A national poll from the Pew Research Center shows that 83 percent of Americans support requiring all voters to show government-issued photo ID.
Mandating verifiable proof of identity and citizenship - which is a key component of the SAVE Act - is essential to safeguarding voter eligibility and enhancing public confidence in our elections.
While I hope that federal officials will act quickly on the SAVE Act, there is plenty we can do at the state level to ensure election integrity as well. Here are a few of the solutions that I strongly support:
· Require voter ID at polling places to ensure every vote cast is by an eligible voter and citizen, a commonsense policy already in place in 36 states. Photo ID’s are required for many things in Minnesota, including buying cigarettes, cashing a check, boarding an airplane, receiving food stamps, and purchasing a fishing license. It’s time to require one for elections too.
· Require regular audits and verification of the Statewide Voter Registration System to ensure that only eligible voters remain on the voting rolls.
· Implement provisional balloting. This gives election officials time to verify a voter's eligibility before their vote is counted - something all but two states do.
· Shrink the voting window. Minnesota’s lengthy voting is currently the longest in the nation and gives potential bad actors plenty of time to scheme the system to their advantage.
· Require a valid vote backup to create a way to verify the vote if needed.
Minnesota’s lax election laws create loopholes for fraud. This has created distrust in our election system and led to citizen anger and division. Everyone, no matter what political party, should come away from an election feeling like it’s a fair election. Any amount of election fraud is an attack on democracy because every fraudulent vote takes away someone else’s legitimate vote.
Rightly or wrongly, if the perception is there that a vote doesn’t count, it creates anger and erodes trust. We must put into place measures that regain this trust.