Congressman Keith Ellison will hold an Aug. 6 community forum on the proposed Voter ID amendment that will be on the Minnesota ballot in November.
Spoiler alert: Ellison is against it.
The forum is Monday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Sabes Jewish Community Center, 4330 S. Cedar Lake Road, St. Louis Park.
He’ll be joined by DFL State Rep. Steve Simon, Dr. Josie Johnson, Mai Thor and Alex Erickson.
Their goal: “to inform Minnesotans about the photo ID amendment’s dangerous consequences and how they can take action to defeat it.”
Comments (2)
Good for him!
I’m seeing signs all over town urging people to vote against the Marriage Amendment (and I’m on the “vote no” side myself), but I’ve seen surprisingly little campaigning against the Voter ID amendment, which could affect even larger numbers of people and influence the outcomes of elections.
If you ask advocates of Voter ID why they’re for it, they say that non-citizens are voting or that people are voting outside their own precinct or in someone else’s name. However, there is no ID currently in existence that meets all three concerns, and the amendment does not specify what constitutes a proper picture ID or whether every adult in Minnesota would be required to acquire a new ID, and if so, how.
As such, the amendment is poorly written and, as Secretary of State Ritchie correctly notes, could have ramifications throughout the voting process.
Vote NO on everything
I expect the lower-profile campaign is a by-product of the anti-marriage amendment passing he legislature a year earlier, and there have been a bunch of campaigns on banning marriage, while photo Id is relatively new. We also have to give credit to the campaign against the anti-marriage amendment, because it’s been well organized. It’s not easy.
The way to remember it though is vote NO on everything. Both amendments are about changing the constitution to deny rights instead of protect rights. They’re attacking people unpopular with Republicans. They come from the same lack of respect for minority rights. They’re just the right and left of the same body.