Dear Neighbor,
Elections policy has a longstanding tradition of being bipartisan so one political party cannot legislate self-serving political advantages over another.
It’s also the right thing to do in the name of preserving our representative republic and governors in the past have demanded that elections bills be bipartisan. Our elections bills should be squarely focused on bipartisanship to ensure confidence and security in voting. Minnesotans deserve a system where it is easy to vote but hard to cheat.
Unfortunately, Democrats flushed all that went down the drain with the hyper-partisan omnibus elections bill they enacted last year. And it continued with another hyper-partisan omnibus elections bill House Democrats approved this week.
Enacting partisan elections policy with virtually zero support from the other side is undemocratic and irresponsible. But, instead of taking a more balanced and reasonable approach, the majority ignored the minority’s good ideas and loaded up this bill with partisan provisions.
Notable changes in this year’s partisan bill include allowing a mere description of residence when an address is not available. This language is cause for significant election integrity concerns. It seems this would be a bigger issue in the more densely populated metro area than out here in Greater Minnesota, so you can draw your own conclusions about how that may play out.
The bill also indicates that, beginning with the 2030 census, prisoners would be counted as residing where they come from rather than the location of the correctional facility. This is a controversial issue, in part, because prison operations have direct impacts and costs on the community where it is located, and the local unit of government should not lose funding because someone is counted as residing elsewhere.
I authored a common-sense amendment to make this measure better. It stipulates that if a person has not lived at a residence in the last 10 years or will not live there in the next 10 years, the only logical conclusion is that the person should not be counted at that residence during redistricting. Redistricting is meant to allocate the population to where they currently live, instead of where they may live sometime in the future.
Unfortunately, Democrats voted down my amendment along with several more good ideas offered by Republicans. I spoke in strong support of bringing provisional balloting to our state to address concerns over same-day registration fraud I have heard directly from elections workers. Provisional ballots would allow us to trust voters but verify the record. Once cast, provisional ballots are stored separately for further verification of the voter’s identity and eligibility. After the identity and eligibility are clarified through the review process, the ballot is counted. If verification cannot be established, the ballot is left uncounted.
This process provides a common-sense mechanism for confirming voters who arrive at the polls on Election Day, but Minnesota currently is one of the last remaining states which fails to issue provisional ballots. While it is concerning to see the Democrats take this partisan approach to elections, voters cannot afford to become disenfranchised. To the contrary, it should provide further incentive to participate in the process and remain vigilant.
There is a lot to chew on here, especially since our election system is a core interest of mine. I will continue advocating for a system that, once again, makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat. It’s another example of why we need more balance in St. Paul.
Have a good weekend and, as always, thanks for the feedback.
Sincerely,
Ben