Working To Protect & Strengthen Democracy in Minnesota
Minnesota’s elections system has long been viewed as a national model for integrity, efficiency and voter access. But as is the case in too many states around the country, Minnesota’s elections system is under renewed attack from forces advocating for a requirement that all registered voters show a government-issued photo ID that includes a current address before being allowed to vote. A wave of legislation requiring IDs for all voters is sweeping state legislatures, under the auspices of squashing voter fraud – a non-existent problem. The real result of a voter ID requirement in Minnesota will be to suppress tens of thousands of otherwise eligible voters, including many of those already most at the fringes of political participation.
Voter ID legislation was passed on party-line votes by the Minnesota legislature in 2011 and promptly vetoed by Governor Dayton. But proponents of voter ID have vowed to put the issue before all Minnesota voters in the 2012 election by passing a proposed amendment to Minnesota’s state constitution, a move that would bypass the Governor. If this effort is successful, Minnesota could become a new type of national leader on elections – as the state taking the most dramatic steps backward and most severely restricting access to the polls for eligible voters.
If Minnesota makes this move, we can expect other states to follow, permanently altering the political landscape around the nation and setting voting rights back decades. A serious and robust campaign to educate a public that does not understand the consequences of a voter ID requirement is imperative to stop this national movement in its tracks and expose it for what it is – nothing more than an effort to suppress voters.
TakeAction Minnesota believes that the more voices there are in the decision-making process of our government, the stronger our democracy is in meeting everyone’s needs. This is why we are leading the effort to stop photo ID efforts in Minnesota.
