Minnesota’s military veterans line up on both sides of voter ID question
October 7, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Military veterans have moved front and center in the debate over Minnesota’s voter ID constitutional amendment.
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Ensuring 1 person, 1 vote – without voter ID that is impossible. It is quite silly to have Obumma, the DNC, and the Democrat Party opposing the voter ID law in the name of trying to protect the votes of our military men and women. One look at lawsuits by Obumma & Co filed in Ohio and other battleground states regarding the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voter Act proves they care little for the military voter. Our military men and women deploy to every stink hole on the globe under the direction of their civilian Commander in Chief – trust me, we want that person elected fairly and support the extra steps to make it so.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Multiple IDs are ALREADY required to vote, either by mail or in person. If the amendment passes, you will need to show an additional picture ID (or something equivalent) even when you vote by mail.
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Funny, I don’t know a single vet opposed to the amendment. Most of us have a strong dislike of fraud. My only problems with voting when serving revolved around recalcitrant bureaucrats at the county level.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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What fraud? All the allegations of fraud are themselves frauds. There is no voter fraud, except in the imagination of some crazy blog writers.
A constitutional amendment requiring a specific kind of ID (photo ID, instead of marriage certificates, social security cards, and birth certificates which lack photos) is a solution to a non-problem.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-truth-about-voter-fraud/2012/08/13/7d6f5ad2-e58b-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_story.html
Hot debate. What do you think?
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My father who fought in three major theaters of war in Europe would have supported this. He didn’t fight and watch many of his friends die before him to not guarantee elections mean 1 vote by 1 person. He fought for freedom, freedom of fair elections everywhere , everytime.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Daria~ You father fought to defend and uphold our ideals which are hinge-pinned to the foundation that this is a Democracy for the people by the people. A voter ID actually attacks that foundation and is part of subversive plot to take down our country by destroying the foundation of our democracy. This bill actually goes against the intents of what your father risked his life to defend…and IMHO you’re dishonoring him by defending this bill.
Harsh I know, but please consider this…Terrorists can’t touch our ideals, terrorists can’t kill America. No enemy we have ever had or could have can touch America. They can destroy our buildings and kill Americans, but they can’t kill the priniciples and ideals that make up America. The Republicans hope to do what no terrorist group could ever accomplish, and that is start the very errosion of the foundation of this country
Since nobody has ever been able to provide a single shred of proof that our Democracy and integrity of our elections are in jeopardy, then the only true threat to our Democracy and country IS the voter ID bill. This bills intent is NOT to fix a problem because the problem simply DOES NOT EXIST! The intent is to undermine and begin the demise of our country by controlling and manipulating the vote. Your father not only one that risked it all to defend our Democracy. People risked their lives, some were killed, many were beat and brutalized by Police and many were jailed, all for standing up for their right to vote, we shame ourselves and dishonor them also by anything less then defending the right for EVERYONE to have a vote.
Republicans are flat out lying about voter fraud….it’s all a sham. Again, NOBODY can prove it exists and is impacting our elections. EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE that they fabricated and spun into trying to convince people that voter fraud is a real problem has been proven to be a lie. Karl Rove with George W. and the power of the whitehose behind him with the aid of the Attorney General went on a 3 year witch hunt to find voter fraud cases. Threatening and intimidating state Attorney Generals to cooperate and dig up proof or be fired. They did fire a number of AG’S it and was huge scandal and Gonzales, George W.’s appointed AG became the fall guy and lost his job over it. But the most important thing is after a 3 year national witch hunt to find voter fraud cases, they only uncoverd 18 cases that could prosecute…18 cases in whole country over a 3 year period and not even those 18 cases were all votes in federal elections, one if recall was for a Sheriff of town in Carolina’s. Does that sound like our election process is being threatened? The Republicans want you to believe that is the case….but it clearly isn’t.
Republicans have lied about the Franken election repeatedly claiming there was voter fraud, but that was the most scruntinized votes in history with Colemans legal team, election officials and even the Supreme Court examining votes for 8 months. EIGHT MONTHS they poured over all the votes and in the end, they never found a single case of voter fraud. Yet Republicans lie, lie, lie and constantly claim there was.
Believe me when say, if I thought that our Democracy was being threatened by some massive voting fraud I would be as vocal and ardent a defender of the photo ID as anyone. But knowing there’s not a shred of evidence that there is a threat, that there is NO voter fraud and a mountain of evidence that this is all Karl Rove brainchild and scheme working on for over 10 years to actually control and manipulate the votes…I see a very real threat to our country the likes of which we have never faced before. Not even the Cuba missile crises…for no missile can take out our priniciples, but this law will.
Your father fought to defend our country, which is not a bunch of land and states, it’s a bunch of ideals. The very existence of those ideals rests upon the principle that this country is for the people and by the people. It’s not…for the people that can get a state certified ID…it’s not…for the people unless are too poor, too old, college students, recently married, recently moved, too poor to have the ID…it’s for ALL the people and not just for the one’s that Republicans think should be allowed to vote.
The judge that put hold on Wisconsin’s voter ID said it best but said the same things I’m saying, just more succinctly…
“A government that undermines the very foundation of its existence – the people’s inherent, pre-constitutional right to vote – imperils its legitimacy as a government by the people, for the people, and especially of the people,” Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess wrote. “It sows the seeds for its own demise as a democratic institution. This is precisely what 2011 Wisconsin Act 23 does with its photo ID mandates.”
Undisputable is that this is a Republican agenda and they are ones pushing the voter id bills. Undisputable is there is no evidence of voter fraud. Undisputable is that they are lying for an agenda. Undisputable is their claims that Democrats are cheating and is only way they can win are likewise contrived lies. Undisputable is the fact that there are over 15 million more registered Democratic Voters then Republicans which is exactly why they are pushing the voter id laws.
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So this is the Left’s latest argument against voter ID? That we will disenfranchise our military serving overseas? Suddenly the Left is worried about assuring our conservative voting vets get their vote counted? PULEEZE!
In yesterday’s DNT there was a letter correctly pointing out how a photo ID is required to exercise our 2nd amendment right to bear arms. Why haven’t the liberals challenged the ID requirement for owning a gun? Why aren’t they screaming about all the restrictions being placed on gun ownership? It’s only because they recognize that to continue to win elections, they must cheat.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I’m still amazed that Al Franken got over 300 convicted felons to vote for him in the recount election and there’s never been an investigation into this.
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First, the alleged “Franken voter fraud” is a lie. There was no fraud there. It is made up by right wing bloggers. There is no real evidence for it except what is made up on blogs and right-wing fake news websites.
Second, a voter ID would not have prevented this kind of fraud had it existed. The alleged votes were not done under aliases under false names. A picture ID would not have made any difference in such a case, where it a real case.
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Prove it, and cite your source.
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Here is a source:
“So: the latest conservative talking point is the claim that there were a bunch of felons who voted improperly in Minnesota in 2008 — perhaps enough to have flipped the very close Senate race in that cycle from Democratic Al Franken to Republican Norm Coleman.
Conservative columnist Byron York’s… accusations are old and long ago debunked. The evidence that York discusses is in a new book by a conservative journalist and a former Bush administration lawyer — charges that were pretty convincingly rebutted when they were made back in 2010. The authors don’t have a great track record on such charges, as voting expert Rick Hasen notes… Some ex-felons voted [about three dozen]. A plurality might have voted for Franken. It wouldn’t have yielded Coleman anywhere near enough net votes had they been tossed.
Regardless: suppose, for a minute, that a few hundred felons who were ineligible to vote nevertheless did vote in Minnesota in 2008.
***First: clearly, making voters show a photo ID would do nothing whatsoever about preventing more of this. No one was impersonating anyone.”***
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/lets-play-voter-fraud-whack-a-mole/2012/08/08/99f9b66c-e18e-11e1-89f7-76e23a982d06_blog.html
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More here…
“The case has been made repeatedly by the Republican National Lawyers Association, one of whose missions is to advance “open, fair and honest elections.” It has compiled a list of 375 election fraud cases, based mostly on news reports of alleged fraud.
News21 examined the RNLA cases in the database and found only 77 were alleged fraud by voters. Of those, News21 could verify convictions or guilty pleas in only 33 cases. The database shows no RNLA cases of voter-impersonation fraud [for which a photo ID would make any difference].”
http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2012/08/cases-voter-id-election-fraud-found-virtually-non-existent
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And more citations on the inaccuracy of the right-wing “Franken voter fraud” claims here…
http://mediamatters.org/research/2010/07/13/conservative-media-hype-not-accurate-report-to/185985
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Source: Coleman’s lawyers, as reported in footnote 3 in the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision:
“Coleman’s counsel confirmed at oral argument that Coleman makes no claim of fraud on the part of either voters or election officials.”
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Md. Democrat Wendy Rosen dropped out of the race for a congressional seat Monday after the state party said she voted in both Maryland and Florida in the 2006 general election and the 2008 presidential primaries.
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And requiring an ID would have prevented this! She only could have voted in one state.
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Nonsense. You get a Wisconsin state ID card while living in Superior, and register to vote. Then you move to Duluth, get a driver’s license, and register to vote. For some period of time, you’re going to be able to vote in both places even if this ridiculous amendment passes. And after you finish your prison term for some felony, you’ll still be able to vote because the amendment doesn’t do anything to catch felons with valid photo ID.
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Your argument seems to be that the voter ID amendment is not enough of a protection, not that it’s unnecessary.
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Here is evidence that a photo ID law is unnecessary:
More here…
“In Minnesota, there have been 10 total cases of reported fraud and no cases of voter impersonation [which a photo ID would address] reported since 2000….
The case has been made repeatedly by the Republican National Lawyers Association, one of whose missions is to advance “open, fair and honest elections.” It has compiled a list of 375 election fraud cases [in the U.S. since 2000], based mostly on news reports of alleged fraud.
News21 examined the RNLA cases in the database and found only 77 were alleged fraud by voters. Of those, News21 could verify convictions or guilty pleas in only 33 cases. The database [of U.S. fraud since 2000] shows no RNLA cases of voter-impersonation fraud [for which a photo ID would make any difference].”
http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2012/08/cases-voter-id-election-fraud-found-virtually-non-existent
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The issue is NOT whether or not ID is needed. Many forms of ID are already needed as part of the voting process.
The issue is whether a PHOTO ID WITH CURRENT NAME AND ADDRESS is needed. Many, many people lack photo IDs with the current name and address. Newly married women, elderly people, people without cars, people who move a lot, and others often lack a current photo ID.
Social security cards and birth certificates , with a current bill with a name and address, all lack photos but SHOULD BE ENOUGH TO VOTE. We need a flexible but firm voting system.
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