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Health & Fitness

Exercise Your Democratic Right: Vote 'No' on Voter Restrictions

Throughout history people all over the world have fought and died to have a say in how they are governed. The American experiment has been the culmination of those struggles

Throughout history, people all over the world have fought and died to have a say in how they are governed. The American experiment has been the culmination of those struggles. A land where people get to vote on who represents them. A land where the people have the final say.

But what example have we been setting? What do the new democracies of the Middle East and elsewhere see when they look at how we govern ourselves? Do they see an electorate which treasures its right to vote? Do they see an enthusiastic, broad based voting populace that seeks to exercise this treasured act at every opportunity? And do they see leaders who take any measure necessary to allow ease of voting and increased participation?

Sadly, the answers to those questions are not encouraging.
In our country's democratic past, too often groups seeking power have been less concerned about increasing participation and more concerned about getting the "right people" to the polls. Our past is full of minority groups having to fight for a simple guaranteed right to vote. Non-property owners, women, African-Americans, minorities in general ... each had to petititon their democratic government for a voting guarantee that, in theory, is the very cornerstone of democratic government.

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With every successful step forward, we have people in power pushing us one step backward. 

Currently, a new threat to "free and proper exercise" has been forming across the land. Under a false guise of "voting integrity," new restrictions on who can vote are developing in state after state. Without any evidence, the accusations get louder and louder via innuendo and hypothetical scenarios. This threat has a lack of validity  because of the partisan nature of it. If we had serious problems with how we conduct elections, then 1) recounts and examinations would certainly uncover them and 2) there would be bi-partisan consensus on the need to fix a theoretically broken system. But investigations have led to nothing of any significance and the partisan nature increases in intensity.

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Frankly, the reality is that our current participation in democracy is embarrassing. Here are the statistics:

Presidential Elections (turn out of voting age population):

2008—56.8
2004—55.3
2000—51.3

Those numbers referred to presidential years ... years when we manage to increase our focus on the electoral process, yet we still find just one-half of the eligible population participating.
It gets worse in off-year (non-presidential) elections:

2010—37.8
2006—37.1
2002—37.0

During off-years we still choose the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate, yet a huge proportion of voters are absent.

You would think that our main focus and desire would be to increase that percentage of participation, but, unfortunately, a growing partisn trend wants to do just the opposite.

Granted, we need to have an orderly election system. A system that can keep track of who is eligible to vote and who is not. But we do have good systems in place for the most part ... underfunded to be sure, but systems that are worthy of our respect, not our derision. Rather than making new rules, new requirements, and new obstructions, shouldn't our focus be on making voting the easiest and most accomodating part of our participatory democracy?

Minnesota, like no other state, has tried to do the latter part of that question.  We have an enviable track record for voter participation. If an eligible person wants to vote, Minnesota finds a way to make it work....legally and easily. But instead of holding up our state as a model for the country, the Republican Party in Minnesota has jumped on the bandwagon for restricting voting rights and hoping to reduce that participation record.

And this new aura of restricting participation comes despite some of the most intensive electoral scrutiny in any state's history. The 2008 Franken-Coleman election was so close as to put a strain on state election law. Every recourse allowed by those laws was taken and the entire system put under enormous, microscopic examination. And, in the end, the system was found to work precisely as it was intended ... even with the enormous stakes involved in the final outcome. In 2010, another election was given similar scrutiny and although the margins were not as small, the end result deemed the system just as effective.

But none of that was rewarded. Rather the system was challenged yet again, even though no evidence of abuse or incompetence was found anywhere. A new law was formulated by a party intent on partisan outcomes, to void years of work that has made Minnesota's election system maintain record high turnouts and national recognition on ease of use. This Republican Party's partisan methodology has gone so far as to push this into a Constitutional amendment process so that they can bypass the system of governmental checks and balances and make their partisan wishes Miinnesota law.

Voting is supposed to be simple. It is supposed to be each person's ability to participate in their government. Those elected to govern us are supposed to never fear the will of the electorate. To never fear the ones who are supposed to have a final say. We should never allow our employees (our elected officials) to manipulate who is involved in the ultimate decision making process.  Voting laws, in a democratic society, are meant to remove obstacles from this process, not add to them.

Photo ID restrictions are still restrictions. The burden of proof for allowing this change, should be on those who would desire more obstacles. The compelling reasons for finding Photo ID necessary must come from those who want to force voters out of the booth. Those reasons have not been forthcoming and the evidence is not credible.

Photo ID is just another restriction on our rights and as a Constitutional amendment, must be rejected.

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