A voter suppressed

I ran this column in the Long Prairie Leader recently. After reading it a friend contacted me. She said her Mexican-American friends in Long Prairie had all been able to vote but all of them had been asked for their drivers licenses. She was not asked, she said. The dark skinned people were being treated differently then white skinned people, she said. She suggested that we have poll watchers at the next election. Good idea!

These Mexican-Americans had current and up-to-date voter registrations. The Long Prairie judges discriminated against the because the law says that if your registration is up to date you do not have to show you i.d. Here's the language from the Minnesota Secretary of State.

"If your voter registration is current and active, you do not need to bring identification. This means you were successfully registered at least 21 days before Election Day and you have not moved or changed names since then."

Here's the link to that language:   https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/election-day-voting/do-i-need-to-bring-id/

Tim 
Central Minnesota Political

A friend of mine thought the recent election was really important. So he made a plan to vote for the first time ever. His name is Francisco and, although he was born in Mexico, he’s been a U.S. citizen for years. He used to live in Melrose but he’s lived in Long Prairie for most of last year. When a family member called me and asked where Francisco could vote, I was happy to help. Long Prairie residents vote at City Hall, I said. Then we went over who was on the ballot. Since this year’s ballot was really complicated we got a copy of the sample ballot in the Long Prairie Leader for Francisco. He doesn’t speak or read much English but many of his family members do. They went over the ballot with him and he studied and thought about his choices.

On election day Francisco was ready to vote. He knew that Minnesota has same day voter registration. That is to say, eligible voters can register to vote on election day. Francisco knew what the rules for registration were. But to be safe, he brought along his adult English speaking granddaughter.

Here’s what the rules for same day registration would have been for Francisco. I say would have been because the Long Prairie election judges turned Francisco away. They wouldn’t let him vote.

So here are the rules. I’ve reviewed them with the Minnesota Secretary of State. I’ve reviewed them with the Todd County Auditor, who trains election judges in Todd County. And I’ve studied the rules at the Secretary of State’s website very carefully.

First of all, a person in Francisco’s situation has to have a bill with his Long Prairie address on it from the last thirty days. No problem. Francisco had that. He showed it to the election judges. That legally demonstrated that he was a Long Prairie resident.

Second, he had to have a picture i.d. card. Here’s what the Secretary of State’s website says about that. It says: “The ID can be expired.” The website also says that if the want-to-be voter uses a drivers license it can be a “Driver's license, state ID or learner’s permit issued by any state.”

The point is that the state of Minnesota wants an i.d. with the photo and the name of the want-to-be voter on the same i.d. card.

Francisco had a valid Minnesota drivers license with his name and photo on it. With the bill with his address on it and the photo i.d. he should have been able to register. But his drivers license had his old Melrose address on it. Francisco’s granddaughter explained that he was going to correct the address on the license when it expired in a couple of months. Nope! Can’t vote, said the wrong headed judges.

I’ve asked the Todd County Auditor and the Secretary of State: were those judges wrong to deny Francisco his chance to vote? Yes! They both said without hesitation.

So why did these election judges turn Francisco away? Would they have registered him if he’d had an i.d. from, for example, Colorado? Were they concerned that he’d vote in Long Prairie and then go and vote in Melrose? I don’t know. Whatever their reason, they denied him his rights guaranteed to all law abiding American citizens.

I asked a family member if Francisco would like to file a formal complaint. No, they said. He’s a quiet man who doesn’t like to cause trouble.

I don’t mind making a little trouble so I asked the Todd County Auditor about a complaint form. She said that there’s a form at the Secretary of State’s website. I spent a lot of time looking at that website and didn’t find it. So I called the Secretary of State’s office. A helpful fellow there agreed that the form was buried and he told me where to look. What he didn’t tell me was that there were two forms. One is called “HAVA ELECTIONS COMPLAINT FORM” and the other is called “MINNESOTA STATE ELECTION LAW COMPLAINT FORM”. To understand which form to fill out I’d need a lawyer.

Francisco may never try to vote again. I wouldn’t blame him.  But we need more Americans like Francisco to courageously step forward and cast their vote. We need to encourage him, and others like him, to vote. Our democracy depends on more of us voting. This year only 49% of registered voters in the U.S. showed up to vote. More then half of American registered to vote didn’t bother to show up. That, in my opinion, is a crisis for our democracy. So, what the dickens are we doing by discouraging people like Francisco from voting?