Secretary of State Mark Ritchie

The Minnesota Legislature is poised to vote on a proposed Constitutional amendment that would replace same-day voter registration with a new election system called provisional voting. Not only would this new system cost local governments tens of millions in new tax dollars, it would delay the reporting of election results while we all waited for 500,000-600,000 provisional ballots to be processed. Since one-third of all provisional ballots nationwide are never counted, this could reduce our overall vote count by up to 200,000, knocking us out of our position as the state with the highest voter turnout in the nation.

Given that over half-million Minnesotans normally use same-day registration in big election years, this kind of radical change should not be taken lightly.

Currently voters are allowed to update their address or other voter registration information and to cast their ballot in their neighborhood polling place on Election Day. The proposed amendment changes the rules and would not allow you to cast your ballot. Same-day registrants could only cast a provisional ballot that could not be opened or processed until election officials finished processing them in the weeks following the election. Cost estimates for taxpayers who would need to pay for this new parallel election system are estimated to be about $40 million for the set-up and then another $3 million to $5 million each year to operate provisional balloting depending on the number of elections held.

The high cost of creating a brand new system of provisional balloting has triggered strong opposition from many organizations representing local units of government, like the Minnesota Association of Townships. They have testified in opposition to provisional balloting numerous times, objecting to the fact that they would need to raise local property taxes in order to pay for this new bureaucracy. The townships asked the Legislature to cover the costs of this new unfunded mandate, but legislative leaders have refused.

This proposed amendment also includes a section that would require local election officials to deny the right to vote to anyone who comes into their polling place without a government-issued identification card.  For example, if you’ve lost your wallet and not yet received a duplicate from the Division of Driver and Vehicle Services, you would not be allowed to cast your ballot. If you are one of the over 1,000 older Minnesotans who have been denied a state ID, you will not be allowed to cast your ballot — even if you have been voting in the same polling place since Roosevelt. About 84,000 current Minnesota voters do not have the appropriate IDs and it is not clear how many could ever get one.

If you are denied the right to vote because you don’t have the proper ID, you will be allowed to submit a provisional ballot. Your vote will only be counted if you can return to your courthouse within a few days with a valid ID.

Besides the very high cost to local communities of this new provisional balloting there is also a danger that this will cause a major increase in the workload and costs for our already busy state Supreme Court. Under a Minnesota law any person denied the right to vote can write to the chief justice of the Supreme Court and request their intervention. If one-third of provisional ballots are rejected this could trigger thousands of appeals. 

This attack on Minnesota’s election system is not isolated – the same is happening in other states. In Maine, last year, the state Legislature tried to repeal same-day registration. Fortunately, the citizens of Maine were able to put this issue on the ballot last fall and by an overwhelming majority – 61 percent to 38 percent — Maine voters saved same-day registration.

This is not a strictly partisan debate. For example, former GOP Congressman and Secretary of State Arlen Erdahl has come out against the proposed amendment, as well as former DFL Secretary of State Joan Growe. Both cited the attacks on same-day registration as key to their opposition.

We have a great election system, the best in the nation, and year after year we make it even better.  If you believe that same-day registration is important, you need to act quickly, before legislators make their final decision about this amendment.  Please contact your state representative and senator and ask them to vote no on House File 2738 — the constitutional amendment that would end same-day registration.

Mark Ritchie is Minnesota secretary of state.

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22 Comments

  1. I’ve got a better and cheaper idea

    Eliminate the practice of same-day registration. It’s clearly a partisan tactic by the democrats to enable ballot box stuffing. A recent study showed that in the 2008 presidential election, same-day voters voted 92-8% for the democrat candidates.

    http://www.minnpost.com/data/2012/03/mapping-voter-same-day-registrations-minnesota?gclid=CJLure7cjq8CFe4DQAodkDX5yA

    Critics of Voter ID have complained that it would probably hurt democratic voters more than republican voters but their complaints are based on speculation alone. They have no proof. But we do have hard evidence that same-day voting benefits democrats. And any voting rule that results in such a lopsided result should be thrown out as unfair to one side. Any honest, non-partisan secretary of state would agree.

    1. So you want legal voters to not be able to register because you don’t like the way they vote. Telling.

      1. You want to hear “telling”?

        I never take Dennis seriously on election issues. He also thinks it was a mistake to grant women the right to vote and likes the idea of reinstating literacy tests for voting.

        That’s “telling” enough for me.

      2. I’m only using the logic

        presented by those who oppose the Voter ID law. If it has a lopsided effect on who gets to vote (democrats, they claim) then the rule should be thrown out. Only with this we have actual data not paranoid rants.

    2. Misquoted statistics

      The MinnPost article Dennis Tester references most definitely did not show “that in the 2008 presidential election, same-day voters voted 92-8% for the democrat candidates.”

      What it did show was that “in precincts with greater than 40 percent same-day registrations, 92 percent of those precincts gave a majority to the DFL in the 2008 presidential race; 8 percent of the precincts went to the GOP.”

      Although the numbers 92 and 8 are the same in Dennis Tester’s misquote and the original article, that’s about all that’s the same. Not only does he ignore the same-day registrants in most precincts (those with less than 40% of their voters in this category), he also acts as though all same-day voters in a precinct voted the way that precinct’s majority voted — even if the precinct was only slightly tipped toward one party.

      Suppose one makes a more reasonable assumption. Instead of assuming that all election-day registrants vote the same way their precinct leans, let’s assume they break down in the same proportion as their respective precincts. If one digs into the full data set that MinnPost made available and does this calculation, one can estimate that the actual DFL/R presidential vote proportion among 2008 election day registrants was about 53:47. That’s slightly more DFL-leaning than the proportion of 55:45 among advance registrants. That’s enough more DFL-leaning to make a difference in a close race like the Coleman-Franken one that year, but it is nowhere near the 92:8 that Dennis Tester so wildly alleges.

  2. Remember when

    conservatives felt that government mandated IDs were an intrusion on privacy, antithetical to a free society and the foot in the door of a police state?

    1. Yes!

      Yes I do remember when the libertarians and conservatives worried about the intrusion of government starting to require all citizens to carry gov’t issues ID at all times. I see this voter ID measure as a trojan horse to make it palatable to very soon require ID as a part of being out and about on the streets.

  3. Personally

    If this passes, I will be sure to not provide an id, vote provisionally and return at the last possible hour to validate my ballot. I will encourage everyone I know to do the same. If voting is to become a circus in MN, show me to the center ring.

  4. I have a better idea

    Just get rid of same day registration all together. Anybody too lazy to register in advance doesn’t belong on the voting booth anyway, so we can save money and improve the quality of our elections at the same time.

    1. Same-day does not equal lazy

      There are a lot of reasons to register same-day rather than in advance, most of which have nothing to do with laziness. Minnesota law says you are not allowed to vote at your former residence, even if you’ve moved as recently as the day before the election. Does Joel Reiter intend that those who move after the advance-registration period closes not be able to vote anywhere?

      1. Tell you what

        we’ll make an exception for that miniscule number of people who moved 30 days before election day.

  5. voter ID

    This message, that 84,000 voters in MN would not be allowed to vote, should be shouted from the rooftops. Along with the reasons why. People keep saying, you have to have an ID to get on a plane, for example. But you have a right to vote, not get on a plane, and this amendment would limit voting for a lot of different people, including elderly, people living overseas, students not living at home, and a lot more. For many this is not a simple matter, especially if you have to return to the courthouse the second time.
    I don’t know what happens if this amendment passes and the Democrats take over and don’t implement it. Or if the Legislature won’t give the counties the money to fund it.

  7. Overhaul of Our Election System

    The Voter ID proposal is more aptly named an Overhaul of our Election System. It would profoundly impact how we vote and would lock the changes into our constitution making it very hard to modify over time. This permanence is especially troublesome because the measure does not have the broad bi-partisan support required for election reform by past governors including Carlson, Ventura and Pawlenty. Pursuing it as a constitutional amendment with one-party support, bypasses the legislative process and avoids the need to work across party lines to build a lasting, bipartisan compromise.

    Proponents are hoping that by the time voters learn in 2013 how the plan would work and how much it would cost, the measure will already be locked into the constitution, offering only buyer’s remorse.

    The most significant result would be to essentially replace our proven Election Day Registration (EDR) system with new Provisional Ballots, often called “placebo ballots” in other states because so few are ever counted. EDR has the longstanding support of Secretaries of State from both parties (with the exception of former SOS and House bill author and ALEC state chair, Rep. Mary Kiffmeyer). EDR drives Minnesota’s consistent national leadership in voter turnout and already requires most EDR voters to present a photo ID. The proposed amendment means the more than half a million EDR voters would likely have to use the two-step provisional process. It would also require the 80% of pre-registered voters to also show a current ID, creating a burden for many.

    And why do we need “voter ID”? Proponents make the undocumented claim of “voter fraud” but even the most closely scrutinized election in state history couldn’t produce any evidence of ineligible voting that a voter ID would prevent. Following the 2008 recount, Fritz Knaak, Norm Coleman’s attorney, said on TPT’s Almanac, “We were looking for fraud, but we didn’t find any.” The history of our constitution is about expanding the franchise, not making it harder to vote. That’s why I oppose the Voter ID amendment.

  8. voter ID

    There is no voter fraud. You can find a few a year, probably, but not enough to have a Voter ID bill passed. Some people bring up felons voting, but an ID would not prevent them from voting. The real purpose is to keep those groups of people who are likely to vote Democratic from voting. We know who those people are, roughly how many, and their voting history from past elections.
    People must start understanding what this amendment really does. And putting it in the Constitution! == Sleazy and underhanded.

  9. There is no evidence that voter fraud is a significant problem and every systematic peer reviewed study that has been published reflects that.

    Photo ID laws have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with a desire to prevent voter fraud. They are 100% motivated by the desire to skew the result on election day.

    The “fraud” is the pretense that these laws are enacted for any other reason.

  10. “There is no evidence that voter fraud is a significant problem”

    Which is impossible to defect if you’re not asking for ID. There would be no evidence of underage people buying liquor if the merchants didn’t have to check their ID.

    1. I was not aware the right to purchase liquor was enshrined in the constitution. Although I believe the right to vote is clearly written into the constitution..

      I’m rather surprised a self admitted constitutionalist such as Mr. Tester would ignore this fact.

      1. Look it up

        The Constitution never explicitly ensures the right to vote, as it does the right to speech, for example. The qualifications for voters are left to the states. And as long as the qualifications do not conflict with anything in the Constitution (race, gender, at least 18), that right can be withheld.

        1. The Minnesota Constitution says voting is a right

          “Every person 18 years of age or more who has been a citizen of the United States for three months and who has resided in the precinct for 30 days next preceding an election SHALL BE ENTITLED TO VOTE in that precinct.”

          Emphasis mine.

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