Some comments on voting procedures

Rep. Keith Ellison wants national legislation to allow for Election Day voter registration. He also wants to outlaw the requirement of photo ID to vote. I agree with him in part.

Election Day registration seems to have worked well in Minnesota. Whether it h as increased voter turn out is not clear, but I don’t think it important, either. As I asked last week in a post on voter turnout, “What good does it do me or the people on my side if the other side shows up?”

And ending Election Day registration here would cause problems. After over three decades of having it, people who have moved would forget to re-register before the election and would become disenfranchised. And it would likely mean added staff time for counties, since full-time civil servants would end up doing work now being done by minimum wage election judges.

Photo identification is not perfect and it can be an unnecessary expense for somebody who otherwise does not need to carry photo identification around. While stopping voter fraud seems like a worthwhile thing, the way this requirement has been implemented in other parts of our republic would seem to indicate that voter fraud is not what the enforcers fear.

I do wonder if it would work so well in other places though. [Hint: Think Chicago.]

Before 1984 voters in Saint Paul had to sign cards that they were registered and eligible to vote. The election judge then checked the signed card with the signed registration on file. The method was not perfect. For one thing, a person who had just registered probably would not have difficulty forging a signature he had just given, but as we noted photo ID is not either, and it imposes a means test However, if we find that we are having problems here it would make more sense to try going back to the old system first, even though an election judge or two will have to tote the signature cards..