Take Action Minnesota said most of the felons who voted did so accidentally, which could be corrected by passage of the felon notification bill that had been opposed by Minnesota Majority.
Former Sen. Norm Coleman stopped to talk with Pajamas Media at last weekend’s True the Vote conference hosted by the King Street Patriots in Houston. The conference trains conservative activists in how to monitor polls and push for tighter voter ID laws. In the interview, Coleman downplayed assertions that voter fraud cost him the election against Sen. Al Franken in 2008 but called voting “one of the greatest privileges that democracy affords,” comparing voter ID to showing an identification card when writing a check at McDonald’s.
In an interview with Stateline, Kansas Secretary of State-elect Kris Kobach said that Minnesota’s Secretary of State Mark Ritchie committed a “heist” in the recount election of Sen. Al Franken. A Republican, Kobach ran on a platform of eliminating voter fraud and was — as Stateline notes — “the intellectual architect of Arizona’s S.B. 1070, the tough-on-illegal-immigrants legislation signed into law in that state last year.” Ritchie, whose work with the bipartisan canvassing board in the Coleman-Franken recount was praised by many, was handily reelected by voters in 2010.
The executive director of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association says Minnesota Majority’s reports of massive voter fraud in the 2008 election were “widely overstated” and “frivolous,” adding that the conservative group’s demands of those investigating suspected voter fraud were draining county public safety resources.
Minnesota media is reporting several instances of overzealous election challengers in polling places as the Republican Party of Minnesota ramps up its allegations of voter fraud. In several Minnesota precincts, reporters confirmed that GOP poll challengers have overstepped their bounds. Meanwhile, the GOP claims that ballot scanners were not working properly in some jurisdictions and that group home assistants have been telling people how to vote.
A Minnesota District Court judge refused on Monday to issue a restraining order allowing tea partiers and vote-fraud monitors to wear “Please ID Me” buttons and t-shirts with tea party slogans in polling places on Tuesday. Election Integrity Watch requested the restraining order after Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said the materials would not be allowed in polling places.
Election Integrity Watch, a coalition of groups including Minnesota Majority and the North Star Tea Party Patriots, filed suit in district court on Thursday afternoon against the state of Minnesota to allow their members to wear “Please ID Me” buttons and tea party t-shirts at polling places throughout the state.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman told Talking Points Memo on Wednesday that the county won’t allow political buttons in polling places. Election Integrity Watch, a conservative anti-voter fraud group, has announced a campaign that includes anti-voter fraud buttons, and it says it will challenge Freeman’s decision.
“Voter fraud. It’s a felony.” So reads the “wanted” poster–style type on new posters being distributed by Republican and tea party groups ahead of election day. What they don’t say is it’s also exceedingly rare. As Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison decries such efforts at attempts to intimidate voters, Hennepin County provides the Minnesota Independent with data that shows only .00006 percent of votes cast in 2008 were done so fraudulently.
A proposed bill that would make Minnesota’s voter requirements among the strictest in the nation was voted down in the House State and Local Government Operations Reform, Technology and Elections Committee on Thursday.
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