Minnesota for Marriage uses gift cards to generate votes for anti-gay marriage amendment
Thursday, November 03, 2011 at 1:00 am
- 16 Comments
Minnesota for Marriage, a coalition advocating for passage of a 2012 vote on a constitutional same-sex marriage ban, launched a campaign Wednesday that will award people prizes for obtaining pledges to support the ban.
The campaign asks each person to obtain five pledges to support the ban in order to be considered for a prize drawing. Drawing winners will receive a $100 Visa gift card. The drawing will be held daily through the month of November.
The group, which is made up of the Minnesota Family Council, the National Organization for Marriage and the Minnesota Catholic Conference announced the campaign on their Facebook page Wednesday afternoon: ”Minnesota For Marriage Announces Drive For Five! Help us grow our campaign by getting five people you know to pledge their support for marriage and protect it as between one man and one woman in November of 2012—and be eligible to win a $100 Visa Card.”
The campaign led bloggers to question whether such activity is illegal. Minnesota prohibits purchase of votes in elections, according to state statute:
Bribery, advancing money, and treating prohibited. A person who willfully, directly or indirectly, advances, pays, gives, promises, or lends any money, food, liquor, clothing, entertainment, or other thing of monetary value, or who offers, promises, or endeavors to obtain any money, position, appointment, employment, or other valuable consideration, to or for a person, in order to induce a voter to refrain from voting, or to vote in a particular way, at an election, is guilty of a felony. This section does not prevent a candidate from stating publicly preference for or support of another candidate to be voted for at the same primary or election. Refreshments of food or nonalcoholic beverages having a value up to $5 consumed on the premises at a private gathering or public meeting are not prohibited under this section.
The contest might pass legal muster as no one is guaranteed a payoff for signing people up, and the document asks people to “pledge their support for marriage and protect it as between one man and one woman in November 2012,” and doesn’t explicitly ask signers to vote.
Here’s the full document courtesy of Good As You.
Follow Andy Birkey on Twitter16 Comments
Comment posted November 3, 2011 @ 2:45 am
That sounds about par for the course when it comes to bigotry: entice people to vote against equality by promising them goodies. Way to go, “Minnesota for Marriage”: nice ethical move. Of course, ethics aren’t really the strong suit of bigots, are they? Oh, and by the way: great name for your little club. I guess marriage is only marriage when you say it it, right? The day is coming–and coming soon–when your antiquated views on human relationships will be rejected by fair and just citizens. Learn to live with it, because you cannot stop the eventual triumph of progress.
Comment posted November 3, 2011 @ 4:10 am
LMFAO!! WOW! Simply “WOW”! Now the catholic bigots(including their little money laundering organization NOM)are having to resort to bribing voters in order to get their points across. Does the State of Minnesota actually ALLOW this practice?!?
Comment posted November 3, 2011 @ 7:01 am
I think there may be more to this than just “buying” votes. Minnesota has pretty strong lottery laws.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=609.75&year=2011
Comment posted November 3, 2011 @ 7:56 am
Wow they must really be desperate, having to buy votes with prized now. Surely the State needs to step in when it comes to this kind of activity or you’ll soon see elected officials offering prizes for votes. Buying votes USED to be illegal.
Comment posted November 3, 2011 @ 8:07 am
But I bet the state will NOT step in because their is no political will to do so. We’ve seen this sort of crap happen before.
Pingback posted November 3, 2011 @ 9:00 am
[...] Full Story from the MN Independent [...]
Comment posted November 3, 2011 @ 1:59 pm
I believe that this is immoral and unethical… seriously?!?!?!
Comment posted November 3, 2011 @ 6:37 pm
Probably Pritchard’s idea, sounds kinda’ Catholic like… sorta’ like a Bingo night in a church basement.
Comment posted November 4, 2011 @ 7:22 am
This doesn’t hold up. While there is something of value being offered (even the opportunity to get the $100 is legally something of “value”) but the money is paid in exchange for a non-binding pledge of support. That’s nowhere near “in order to induce a voter to refrain from voting, or to vote in a particular way,”
Drop the story.
Comment posted November 4, 2011 @ 7:51 am
Every LGBT person in Minnesota should pledge there support, then vote against it. Then take there money and use it to fight BS like this. Lets use there money against them.
Comment posted November 4, 2011 @ 8:11 am
heh,heh!! Sounds like a cool idea “gayman”! Count me in!
Pingback posted November 4, 2011 @ 11:30 am
[...] on the strength of the anti-equality camp, some are questioning whether it is even legal. The Minnesota Independent point to state law prohibiting the purchase of votes. While the coalition is attempting to trade [...]
Comment posted November 4, 2011 @ 12:57 pm
Minnesota has pretty strong raffle laws. Even nonprofits can’t run raffles that go on for months. This doesn’t seem to me like its about “buying” votes as much as it is about holding a raffle and making sure the raffle follows the state gambling board rules and state laws on raffles.
Comment posted November 4, 2011 @ 5:32 pm
They’re raffling off individual rights. Is this what they call patriotism?
Comment posted November 4, 2011 @ 11:32 pm
The scheme may not specifically ask for a vote but the intention is clear – they want support in November 2012. That’s the same as asking for support by voting in their favor.
Someone should take them on and expose these organizations for what they really are.
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