OpEd Contributor
Minnesota, the land of murky elections
By: Jeff Davis, OpEd Contributor
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June 2, 2009
Minnesota has long been known as the land of 10,000 lakes. Over the past several months, however, our state has also become known as the battleground of the hotly contested U.S. Senate election involving incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and his Democratic challenger, Al Franken. We can now add to our list of notorieties as being the state with out-of-balance election records.
This past week, a group of citizens and state legislators filed a lawsuit against Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and county election officials. The suit alleges that the officials violated state law by failing to post the record of who voted in the 2008 election by the statutory deadline and by failing to balance the number of recorded voters to the number of ballots.
Seven months after the election, Minnesotans still don’t have a complete record of who voted in November 2008. State law requires all voter histories to be posted within 6 weeks following an election.
At issue is a significant mismatch between the number of ballots reported in the official state canvassing board report of the 2008 election, and the number of corresponding voter histories in the statewide system.
The day after the lawsuit was filed, Ritchie himself admitted that election records are still out of balance by 30,000 to 40,000 votes. He also said he hopes to eventually whittle the discrepancy down to around a 1,000 vote difference. Tell that to Coleman and Franken who are still battling it out in court over just a few hundred votes.
Adding to the intrigue of this case is the fact that Ritchie’s predecessor, Mary Kiffmeyer states that she had put a process in place requiring counties to balance their election system records. She said it was her interpretation of the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that compelled her to establish the procedure. It appears that Ritchie may have dismantled this process after taking over for Kiffmeyer.
This story really began more than seven months ago, in October 2008 when a number of irregularities were discovered in Minnesota’s voter registration records; things like deceased people being on the voter rolls, convicted felons who had registered to vote from prison and non-existent voter addresses. Instead of investigating these issues, Ritchie decided to circle the wagons, claiming at a press conference that Minnesota has one of the best election systems in the nation.
During this same time, ACORN was taking credit for registering more than 80,000 new voters in preparation for the 2008 election. Unlike other states that are now actively investigating and prosecuting ACORN for fraudulent election activity, Minnesota has done nothing. Allegations of wrong-doing were swiftly squashed by Minnesota’s ACORN-endorsed attorney general and Ritchie..
Minnesota has some of the most liberal election laws in the nation. Registered voters are not required to provide any form of identification to vote. People can register on Election Day by simply providing a paper utility bill as proof of identity and residence. No utility bill? No problem – someone in the precinct can vouch for you and 14 other people.
“Yeah, sure… I know these 15 people. What were your names again? Go ahead and let ‘em vote. I’ll vouch for ‘em.”
Fair and transparent elections are a cornerstone of our republic. Accurate and timely recordkeeping is a prerequisite. How can you know if embezzlement is occurring at a bank if you don’t know how much money was in the vault to start with? No one seems interested in doing the job of investigating.
From the Sioux, the name Minnesota translates to “muddy waters.” That never made much sense to me, because our sky-blue lakes and streams are generally crystal clear. Our election system has become anything but transparent, though. Rather than a crystal brook, it looks more like a dirty pond – the water is murky and offers a friendly environment for parasites. And that’s apparently just the way some Minnesota election officials would like to keep it.
Jeff Davis is president of Minnesota Majority, a legislative watchdog group which promotes traditional values in public policy.
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