Posted: 07/15/10 14:58, Edited: 07/15/10 18:24
by Dave Mindeman
It is astonishing that the media are allowing the Minnesota GOP to continue this story about felons voting in the 2008 election.
If the GOP is truly interested in "honest" elections then why not revisit Florida 2000 when the state government used a felony list to exclude legitimate voters because they had similar names to those of the felons.
At first, Florida specified only exact matches on names, birthdates and genders to identify voters as felons. However, state records reveal a memo dated March 1999 from Emmett "Bucky" Mitchell, a lawyer for the state elections office who was supervising the felon purge, asking DBT to loosen its criteria for acceptable matches. When DBT representatives warned Mitchell that this would yield a large proportion of false positives (mismatches), Mitchell's reply was that it would be up to each county elections supervisor to deal with the problem.
And the desired effect was obvious:
According to the Palm Beach Post, among other problems with the list, although blacks accounted for 88% of those removed from the rolls, they made up only about 11% of Florida's voters.
Improvements in identifying convicted felons was improved as part of the HAVA act, which Minnesota complied with. Could felons have still gotten through the system...sure. But the numbers are going to be nowhere near enough to be an election changer. This is more smoke and mirrors by the GOP.
This "distraction" has no real resolution because even if we identify all the felons who voted, their ballot is still secret. They could tell us who they voted for, but really what difference would that make? They are felons and they already lied to vote. How reliable is anything they say?
If you want to go and do an investigation that really matters, then we should investigate why students get turned away at the polls. I still remember the problems at a student high rise in Minneapolis called the Chateau and how a number of students were turned away on election day 2008.
How about that GOP? Think that was fair? Where was the outrage on that?
This felon voting "issue" is another of many attempts to deligitimize Al Franken as a Minnesota Senator. Sure we should fix the problem...please do. But then let's fix the voter suppression issues as well. Republicans know that NOT counting all the votes is their path. When people stay home and don't take advantage of their ability to vote, then they (the GOP) do better.
I'll say it again. In 2008, Minnesota went through one of the most exhausting examinations of our voting method that any state has ever undergone. We passed with flying colors. Nothing is ever perfect and problems will surface especially with the desperate scrutiny of the losing side.
But Minnesota is still a model and the system will improve even more, now that we have had that full examination.
Close elections can make for hard feelings. But when you want to continue divisive charges that have no method of resolution, then you are not acting in the best interests of your state. Not by a long shot.
UPDATE: Eric Kleesfeld at TPM gives a more complete argument on the "felony issue" with:
Right Wing Howls: Felons Put Franken Over The Top! (Nope)
