To stamp out voter fraud, GOP legislators have offered a proposal that would make Minnesota’s voter-ID laws the most restrictive in the country. But according to their own party, no actual cases of voter fraud have been reported here. Still Reps. Tom Emmer, R-Delano, and Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, have sponsored a bill requiring photo identification for every voter.

The Republican National Committee’s Minnesota voter fraud Web page announced, “There are no recent documented reports of vote fraud in this state.” And that’s with a recount of 2.9 million votes that took four months to scrutinize Minnesota’s election system.

But that hasn’t stopped Emmer or Kiffmeyer. “Voters want to know that their contribution to our enduring democracy will not be cancelled out through fraud or abuse,” wrote Emmer in a January opinion piece in the Pioneer Press. Kiffmeyer said at a late-January press conference on the bill that Minnesota’s voting system is vulnerable to fraudulent attacks unless a photo ID system is instituted.

“Mary Kiffmeyer should know better,” Hamline University professor David Schultz wrote today. “During her tenure as secretary of state she was unable to document any serious or widespread voter fraud. If fraud did exist, there is no indication that the current laws are ill-equipped to address the problem.”

“You can’t make this up!” reads the banner above the GOP’s results on Minnesota’s voter fraud. Apparently some in the GOP didn’t get that message.

The problem: Election officials would not accept the same kind of proof of residency they had in the past — a letter from building management that explains Chateau residents pay for their heat and electricity as part of their rent and therefore don’t have individual utility bills. A revised letter prepared quickly after the Chateau’s office opened at 10 a.m. didn’t pass muster either. A call to the national Election Protection hotline got the Minnesota Secretary State’s office and the Minneapolis City Attorney’s office involved. Finally, at 4 p.m., after much back and forth, the Chateau office got word that within the hour election officials would accept a third version of the letter that mimicked an invoice.

But by then, some of the Chateau’s 290 residents were turned away from the polls with a letter in hand that had always worked in past years — and some weren’t able to return to vote in the final three hours the polling place was open.

How many voters might’ve been turned away is unclear. About a quarter of Chateau residents are international students who are ineligible to vote, according to the Chateau’s management office, and of the others — likewise, all students — some probably pre-registered, voted absentee or were already on the voter rolls from past elections. With the statewide recount underway in the U.S. Senate race continuing to show a gap of fewer than 200 votes between leading candidates Al Franken and incumbent Norm Coleman, every vote counts.

But the transient student population in the building includes many first-time voters or recently moved-in residents who rely on Minnesota’s same-day voting registration to exercise their franchise. One was Jill Stein, who spoke with Minnesota Independent reporters recently about her experiences on Election Day. Stein returned twice to the polling place in the morning before giving up and arranging a ride from her parents so she could cast a ballot at their home polling place in Robbinsdale.

Mahamoud Wardere (in red shirt) talks to voter

Earlier today, three voters of Somali origin at the Brian Coyle Center in Minneapolis told me — and two told an election observer — that a translator working there may have interfered with voters.

In addition, the presence of a staffer from Norm Coleman’s office who says he came to volunteer his services as a GOP challenger or translator also stirred controversy between election judges and challengers.

The tussles started this morning around 10:30, when three white male Republican vote challengers arrived at the Brian Coyle Community Center in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis claiming that they had received a phone call indicating that Somali translators there were telling area residents to vote for Democrats.

One of the challengers confronted an election judge with the claim. The Somali community had about eight translators there assisting. The election judge assured that translators were only there to provide language assistance.

Two Republican challengers monitoring voters at Brian Coyle Center

The men then called in a GOP-affiliated Somali translator. According to eyewitnesses, he is well-known in the Somali community because he works at Sen. Norm Coleman’s office. The man initially refused to give me his name, but later conceded that he is Mahamoud Wardere, a staffer in Norm Coleman’s US Senate office.

At about the time of his arrival, a few of the community translators were confronted by the remaining white GOP challenger. He asked one woman, who was a volunteer, if she had been sworn in. (Translators do not need to be sworn in.) At another point he told the election judge that the translators could not be at the voting booths “hovering around.” He also confronted some other translators directly, but refused to let me hear what he was saying. Some of the translators left, one person told me of feeling “intimidated.” Yet Wardere admitted to me that he never heard anyone telling voters how to vote, and was unsure why the GOP challenger was confronting the translators.

Wardere, who hung around and talked to voters inside, was eventually asked to leave the voting area, since he was not allowed to serve as both an election challenger and a translator — for his own part, Wardere initially said he was uncertain whether he was called in as a challenger or a translator — nor could there be more than one GOP challenger in the room.

But the Coleman staffer did not leave the premises. From around 11:00 onward, Wardere sat in a nearby room, greeting and conversing with people. “People know him and like him,” one person told me. “But we all know him as a campaigner.”

As the day progressed, more confusion ensued about voter laws and Wardere’s role in the polling place. Three eyewitnesses told me that a translator told them to vote for Norm Coleman, though those individuals declined to give their names or point out the specific translator. One man said he was afraid to give his name because he didn’t want people to get mad at him, but added that “it is just not right.”

[UPDATED: This paragraph and the quoted passage below contains a modified version of the source's claims.] A polling observer from Election Protection, a non-partisan group working polling places, also told me of complaints that two people had made to her. To quote from an email she sent to correct my original characterization:

What two people told me, and what I relayed to Ms. Priesmeyer three separate times, was that a woman in red headdress appeared to be approaching only elderly, non-English speaking voters and offering them translation services. They said that the woman in red headdress was physically filling out the ballot, rather than allowing the elderly voter to do so, and making selections contrary to the elderly voter’s intent. One of the people who approached me said that in one instance she witnessed an elderly voter indicate that she wanted to vote for Al Franken, and the woman in red headdress selected Norm Coleman instead. She also pointed out the gentleman identified in the article as Mr. Wardere and identified him as someone who works in Norm Coleman’s campaign office (as did many others). She said he had been hanging around the polling place (a gymnasium) and then in a separate room to the left of the polling place throughout the day. She said that he had been approaching and talking to others who were coming to vote.

I did not observe, nor was I told, nor did I state to Ms. Priesmeyer or anyone else that a woman in red headdress was bringing elderly voters to the man identified in the article as Mr. Wardere (or to anyone else, for that matter).

The election judge, Margie Sanronman, said she has never seen things so ugly. She’s served as a volunteer judge for the precinct for 10 years. “It’s been disruptive all day,” she said. “We’ve had a disruptive challenger. People fighting with each other. They’ve been complaining about people all day.”

The disruptive challenger she spoke of was the GOP challenger, who declined to speak to me.

For more on the story, read Nekessa Opoti’s account from the Twin Cities Daily Planet.

Below: A 2006 press release that details Wardere’s role in Norm Coleman’s campaign, and a video interview by the UpTake of a volunteer translator who was “challenged” by the GOP challenger on site.

On Minneapolis’ north side, where I live, Election Day started out with long lines of citizens waiting to vote. At the Urban League and a block away at Northpoint Health & Wellness Center, voters had to wait as long as an hour and a half. Further north in Minnesota Independent editor Steve Perry’s neighborhhood, lines were nearly as long. We visited the lines and asked voters how their experience went and what issues brought them to the polls. Here’s what they had to say:

You have been warned. We hope this message will save a few souls from forfeiting their right to democratic participation just because they choose to have a few barley pops before heading to the polls.

(Image stolen from iwaspissed.com)

A discarded newspaper outside a North Minneapolis polling place. Photo: Paul Schmelzer

Outside North Minneapolis’ River of Life Church, an official polling place, a discarded copy of The Final Call newspaper this morning suggests one possible reason record numbers of voters, including many first-timers, are expected to hit the polls today. See MnIndy’s Election Day Flickr pool here.

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Long lines at the Glover-Sudduth Community Center in north Minneapolis around 10:00 a.m.

We’d like to hear about your voting experience today: not only how it went, but what you saw, heard, felt, thought.

Don’t know where to vote? Use the Minnesota secretary of state’s pollfinder.

MnIndy coverage of today’s voting:
Follow us, call us, talk to us on Election Day [how you can help MnIndy cover election day]
Power outage at two St. Paul polling places
Early turnout in Minneapolis: “Wow”
Election Day morning, University of Minnesota campus: mobbed but orderly
Norm Coleman votes, expresses optimism
Lines everywhere: Minneapolis turning out huge numbers

The best commentary on the robust early turnout came from 15-month-old Peter (last pic below) — who, upon arriving with his mom, took a look at the queue stretching down the block and offered one word: “Wow.”

But can you film at the polls here in Minnesota? Sort of.

Minnesota Statutes may prohibit you from using a cell phone camera or other recording device within the polling place itself, even if your purpose is just to document your own voting experience, according to the Citizen Media Law Project. According to a statement from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office:

While there is no state or federal law that strictly prohibits the use of cameras or other video equipment in the polling place to record an individual’s own voting experience, the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State strongly discourages voters from using cameras or video recorders in the polling place for the following reasons:

Voters have a right to privacy-both as to how an individual has voted as well as whether or not an individual has voted. Either or both of these could be compromised by pictures or video. In addition, other voters’ objections to being photographed could lead to disruptions within the polling place.

We are expecting record turnout this year, which means that there may be lines and polling places may be crowded. Voters have a right to take the time they need to vote, but should not take extra time to take pictures.

And if you are interviewing and filming voters, Minnesota law requires you remain 100 feet from the entrance. What’s more, a Minnesota statute prohibits voters from showing their marked ballot to others. Photographing or videoing a marked ballot “could” violate this law, Citizen Media Law Project notes.

Of course, this will be the first year that web site like YouTube and Twitter will play such an important role in determining voter fraud issues and quickly disseminating information about voter experiences. And given the privacy of voting and the confusing laws regarding camera use, we’re also betting the cameras themselves will become an issue at polling places as election officials order them turned off or removed based on state laws that vary across the country. But behind that little curtain, no one can stop you from filming video of your own experience and issues like the ones shown in the video below. We’ve contacted the SoS office for more information regarding videoing your vote and will update when we get the details.

John McCain’s attempt to magnify allegations of voter registration fraud could mitigate the impact of a Barack Obama victory and deter black Democrats from turning out to vote in future elections.

Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) and his allies have seized on the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN, which has worked to register more than 100,000 lower-income and minority voters. Some of the registrations have been faked and investigations are underway in some key states.

Even though Republicans have leveled the same attack against Democrats in recent election cycles, accusing Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) of stealing the election could preemptively undermine the legitimacy of his presidency.

It’s part of the Republican DNA to accuse Democrats of stealing elections just as Democrats accuse Republicans of intimidating minorities. It has been ingrained in the GOP’s neurons since John F. Kennedy eclipsed Richard Nixon in 1960 when there were allegations of cheating in Illinois and Texas.

“Republicans tend to believe that Democrats tend to cheat. The belief is nothing new,” John Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College, said.

But the allegations are more ferocious because the Obama campaign has registered millions of new voters. In Minnesota, ACORN claims to have registered 42,581 voters, which could give Obama a one or two point edge in a close race.

While Obama’s voter registration effort is a part of his presidential campaign and entirely separate from ACORN’s, the McCain campaign and its surrogates have continued to falsely link Obama to ACORN.

“The reason that it is [more intense] is because Obama is black, that’s the difference,” former Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Calif.), said, adding that the attacks have longer-term implications. “This is a good way of raising the race card without raising it.”

“If [Obama] loses, two things happen. [Republicans] still have the race issue and then the black community becomes turned off” to electoral politics, Coelho said.

“I think they are doing that to build a case against Obama if the left tries to steal this election, which clearly they are trying to do,” John Feehery, a Republican strategist, said in an email.

McCain has created a campaign committee to examine allegations of voter registration fraud. On Monday, GOP volunteers handed out flyers at a McCain rally in Virginia urging reporters to link ACORN to the $700 million rescue package (something that McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis also said last week).

McCain has continued the line of attack even after being reminded that he attended an ACORN rally in favor of an immigration bill he was working on in 2006.

The McCain and Obama campaigns held dueling press conferences on Tuesday to accuse the other of acting in bad faith.

“If left uncorrected, these numerous investigations and accusations of voter fraud with ACORN could produce a nightmare scenario on Election Day,” Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, said in a statement.

David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, said McCain’s tactic was “a strategic and cynical ploy to sow confusion and a deliberate attempt to decrease turnout. It is a smokescreen to challenge people inappropriately. Throwing anything they can at the wall to create a diversion.”

The GOP’s outrage erupted last Friday when the McCain campaign released a web-only advertisement insinuating that Obama worked for ACORN in the early 1990s (he did not) and argued that McCain killed the initial bailout package because ACORN’s partners would have been able to apply for government money to invest in low income housing. In fact, House Republicans objected to such a provision and it was dropped before McCain took a position on the bill.

Top GOP lawmakers also believe that Democrats are trying to steal the election. Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) told reporters on Friday that a Democratic lawmaker – who he would not name – told him jokingly that, “We got the votes, we’re just looking for the bodies.”

“We could lose, I suppose, if they cheat us out of it. I think the only way we lose a state like North Carolina or Indiana is to get cheated out of it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette last week.

And there are multiple ongoing investigations into voter registration fraud in several swing states.

ACORN, not surprisingly, has a different take on the situation. “Not only is this a preemptive strike to try to attack Obama, it’s a strategy to try to justify challenging the basis of the election,” Brian Kettenring, an ACORN spokesman, said in a phone interview.

Moreover, there is no evidence that a falsely registered voter have cast actual ballots. To Democrats and independent analysts, the entire story is contrived.

“In almost every case where you’ve heard about fraud by Acorn, it’s because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that’s been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers,” Brad Friedman, the author of the blog, BradBlog.com, which reports on voting rights issues, wrote recently in The Guardian. “None of this is about voter fraud. None of it. Where any fraud has occurred, it’s voter registration fraud and has resulted in exactly zero fraudulent votes.”

Robert Bauer, Obama’s election law attorney, said on Tuesday that Republicans had put “enormous amounts of pressure on criminal justice system” to ferret out voter fraud and reminded reporters that the U.S. attorneys firing scandal started because some U.S. attorneys did not prosecute voter registration fraud to the Bush administration’s liking.

“The only fraud that has affected the governmental process is the one that has been launched on the other side looking to establish a fact that does not exist,” Bauer said.
Despite the torrent of accusations, Democrats remain confident that the accusations will disappear by the wayside if Obama wins.

“Post election, all of this will be swept away,” Bob Shrum, a longtime Democratic strategist and speechwriter, said. “Having gone through 2000, where Republicans did steal the election, everybody moves on.”

“Obama is on his way to such a huge electoral win, at least as things look today, that this will not work after the election,” Joe Trippi, a Democratic political strategist, said. “And there will not be fraudulent voting that is provable in any case.”

Beyond the political calculus of winning or losing, the next president will confront larger and more complex issues.

“Obama will have much bigger problems than that—because he’s a liberal Democrat, because he’s black, and because he faces challenges far more vexing than those that confronted most of his predecessors,” G. Calvin Mackenzie, a political scientist at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, said.

Others argued it was unlikely that the McCain campaign, like most campaigns, is incapable of thinking so far ahead.

“That notion assumes way too much long-term thinking on the part of McCain and the Republicans. Their time horizon goes no farther than Election Day,” Pitney said.

Unless McCain – assuming he comes up short on Election Day – raises questions or contests the vote, the issue likely will disappear. Even in previous elections where there was no clear winner, the loser has often helped establish the winner’s legitimacy.

“That Al Gore did not cry foul about the way the election was decided probably contributed to Bush’s legitimacy,” Mackenzie said, “in the same way that Nixon’s refusal to cry foul in 1960 when there was genuine cheating in Illinois and Texas helped Kennedy.”

Jonathan E. Kaplan is the Center for Independent Media’s Washington correspondent.