Come up with plan for voter ID before casting it in stone

Although neither of us is a political activist, we feel the voter ID amendment will impact all Minnesotans. Some will have the ability to vote restricted but we all will incur a monetary burden to implement and maintain a new system if the amendment passes.

Voting is a right guaranteed by the constitution and to put limits or barriers on this right or to restrict it in any way has consistently been found to be unconstitutional.

We already have processes in place to prevent fraud that have proved effective for decades. Our system already works well, so “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

For many people living in highly populated areas that are healthy, own and drive cars, there will be few changes save, of course, for a higher tax burden. But for 210,000 (7 percent) that do not have a driver’s license and those of us that live in sparsely populated areas our ability to vote will be severely limited. This could be around 300,000 votes, representing one out of every 10 voters. That would easily be enough to sway many elections, much greater than the one or two fraudulent votes detected so far.

Furthermore, if this amendment passes it is “cast in stone” in the constitution and if it does not work, we are stuck with it forever.

Passing this bill will require the 2013 legislature to hammer out the language to make this amendment workable. There is a high probability of lawsuits and court action, especially worrisome in the light of the poor performance of our legislative process at this time. We have no idea of how much time, energy and money this will take or even what the final result will be.

Since no study was ever done to substantiate the need for reducing supposed voter fraud concerns, let’s table this amendment for now. Then we can look into possible reasons to require greater security measures, identify them and make a sensible plan to correct them if needed. Please vote no on the proposed voter ID constitutional amendment – it may be the last time you get a chance.

Craig and Dianne Peterson
Grand Marais