participants here tonight the forum is being broadcast live on ne metro cable t v and we'll get a nod from the control room when we are on the air we are on the air ok thank you good evening i'd like to welcome everyone here tonight to the voter identification amendment forum i'm john branch chair of the maplewood human rights commission and moderator of tonight's forum the form is jointly sponsored by the human rights commissions of the cities of maplewood and roseville in the interest of minnesota open meeting laws human rights commissioners from the city of maplewood are present here this evening but we will not convene a commission meeting tonight and no business of the commission will be conducted i'd like to remind participants that this form is being broadcast live to the northeast metro suburbs and government access cable t v and to welcome our cable t v viewers we want to quickly get to our speakers this evening but first i want to mention a second form that we will be hosting on the other amendment question that will be on the ballot in november two weeks from tonight on tuesday evening october twenty third we will be hosting a second forum on the marriage amendment that event which we are calling the future of marriage in minnesota will be held next door at the maplewood community center where we will have the banquet room with seating for more participants the format for these two events will be very different the marriage forum will not be a debate but rather will feature presenters who will speak to the many issues that affect marriage in minnesota including the history and culture of marriage and families and economic and religious considerations i we had we were planning to take a comment from gary who is the chair of the roseville commission but i understand that there was a car accident on the way here and that he is delayed getting here so i'll continue on the voter id forum that we are hosting tonight started out as a community education a vent in the last week has morphed into a debate between some of the leading statewide advocates for the pro and anti sides of this proposed constitutional amendment with this for more of a debate than we intended we would like to establish a tone and some ground rules for this event when voters go to the polls on november sixth people will simply vote yes or no on the amendment questions but the commission believes that citizens of minnesota will vote yes or no for many different reasons these issues are not black and white the presenters here this evening will be speaking to the many different sides of the proposed amendment perhaps many in the audience this evening came with an opinion but might not have decided how they're going to vote undoubtedly there are many here tonight that have already decided how they're going to vote and are passionate about their opinions so let's be honest no one came here tonight not knowing that this issue is controversial so let's not be surprised when we discover that our neighbors here this evening who are all deemed to be reasonable people might see these issues differently we hope that all participants remember that challenging people to examine different issues issues in views is seldom accomplish accomplished by being overly zealous or simply loud informed voters and productive public policy is most likely to come from good information thoughtful explanations and perhaps persuasive arguments the speakers here this evening are skilled presenters and are all worth listening to we hope the audience is filled with equally considerate and respectful attendees we are inviting audience participation in our forum this evening in fact the questions for our panel tonight will come from you the audience to start each speaker will be given seven eight minutes for their opening comments and to explain some of their views on voter identification if you have a question for our speakers we are asking audience members to write your question on a card or on a piece of paper maurice will hold cards up please ask for a card and we will pass one down the aisle or you can write it on a piece of paper and pass it back we have well over one hundred people here tonight perhaps not and we will and we will only have time for the panel to perhaps answer eight to ten questions so please submit only your or your best one or two questions and trust that others will also ask good questions please write only one question on a card in indicate on your card with your question is directed to an individual speaker or to the entire panel cards may be passed back to a commissioner who will collect the cards and deliver him to our crack team of three commissioners in the back of the room who will review the questions perhaps combined duplicate may paraphrase questions and they will pass them to me as the moderator to read to the panel by agreement of all parties and to assist with time management questions will not be taken directly from the audience there will be two rounds of questions in the first round questions will be directed to the panel as a whole and each side will have up to two minutes to respond to answer and opposing speakers will then have two minutes to respond we were will rotate questions to each side the second round will include one question directed individually to each speaker in turn who will then have up to two minutes to answer and the opposing side will have up to two minutes to respond response time within time limits may be split between the two speakers representing each side because of the time that can be lost to applause are asking audience members not to applause or otherwise express approval or disapproval to what speakers might say panel members are here tonight to educate the audience and will not be directly debating each other speakers are welcome to challenge statements made by other panel members but such responses should be directed at the audience and not to opposition speakers to facilitate time management time keepers are positioned in the front role and will hold up signs to advice speakers when they are down to one minute thirty seconds and times by agreement on the panel the presenters and will be allowed to go all over time and will try to be fair about that if any speaker believes that they need more time to respond to a question they may ask for additional time or make notes on the issue and address it during q and a or during their closing comments at the end of the form each side will be given five minutes to summarize their case for why the voter id amendment is or is not good public policy so those are the ground rules for the forum tonight this is a blue ribbon panel of informed speakers and should ensure that this event is both informative and entertaining i'd like to introduce our panel members in the order that they will be speaking please hold applause until all speakers have been introduced our first speaker this evening will be representative mary kiff meyer was the minnesota secretary of state from one nine hundred ninety eight to two thousand and six she was elected to the minnesota house of representatives in two thousand and eight to house district sixteen b which is the area surrounding big lake minnesota she was reelected in two thousand and ten and is now running for a minnesota senate seat from the same area she is the author of the house bill that resulted in the legislation that put this amendment question on the ballot our second speaker is miss carolyn jackson carolyn jackson currently serves as the lobbyist for the a c l u of minnesota the a c l u of minnesota is an affiliate of the american civil liberties union the oldest civil rights law firm in the nation she has been a lawyer for twenty years having graduated with honors from the university of michigan law school her employment experience includes working for governor jim thompson of illinois and governor terry branstad of iowa our third presenter this evening will be dan mcgrath mr mcgrath is the executive director of minnesota majority and runs the pro amendment campaign protect my vote he's been actively promoting the voter id amendment over the last year and along with representative kiff meyer might be considered the leading spokes person for getting the amendment put into the minnesota constitution our fourth speaker this evening will be governor arnie carlson arnie carlson was a minnesota legislator and secretary of state in the one nine hundred eighty s and governor of minnesota from one nine hundred ninety one to one nine hundred ninety nine he was chairman of the board of american express funds for eight years governor carlson believes his number one accomplishment as as governor was restoring integrity to minnesota's budget process by lifting the state out of an inherited two point three billion dollars deficit into a budget surplus by the end of his second term the minnesota poll named governor carlson along with hubert humphrey and walter mondale as one of the three great minnesota political figures of the twentieth century please welcome all of our speakers here this representative mary meyer is our first speaker this evening representative meyer you have eight minutes thank you very much john and thank you to the maplewood city hall and the residents here for generously  sharing of your environment here in your space very much good to see you here this evening governor i haven't seen you in republican circles for a while so it's kind of nice to see you again and caroline and dan as well and you get to know each other when you're in the process traveling the state and doing other things like that and so it is a friendly as we say we want to maybe have a disagreement but not be disagreeable about it and i appreciate that from the human rights commission and the standard you set and for us as well so i've also been asked to just give a little bit of a background about the photo id constitutional amendment as an election judge in my local polling place for about eleven years my thought about having an id came while sitting at the table and having folks come up to me who were total strangers say their name and my finding that name on the roster and so even at that time i thought would speed things up if we just had a photo id little did i know that later on i would be secretary of state and be able to work on elections what a privilege it was to do that and while i was secretary of state to be number one in voter turnout  for all eight years so these are things that are dear to my heart and also the integrity of the election system the constitutional amendment that's before you today then comes out of that i think it's important for people to know that  in addition we did look at a statutory bill we did pass one in the first year and in two thousand and ten but as we saw governor dayton speech of that particular bill and as we were going through the process at the same time around the country there were questions about statutory bills and where they constitutional it's an issue right now in other states and so i decided that instead of proceeding along the line statutory bill it might be good to start with the minnesota constitution as stablished that policy there and proceed to election administration laws derived from the constitution like many other laws as well and so we are here today it is on the ballot before you as the authority of the constitution gives it to the legislature by a majority vote of the house and of the senate and to place things directly to the people and as upheld most recently by the state supreme court so we have a constitution amendment for you in its essence is requiring a photo id as a part of the voting process also gives you a free state id and it allows a delayed implementation to give the legislature time if they should choose prior to its effectiveness for the november election next year so with that the photo id constitutional amendment will add integrity to our election system and it would also have the necessary flexibility so that it will be easy to vote continue to do that but harder to cheat same day registration absentee voting voting by mail military voters all those methods will continue with the photo id constitutional amendment ninety eight percent of minnesotans already have an id and in the usual minnesota style i think that democrats and republicans and independents plus all or civic organizations can all work together to help anyone who has need of the free id that's a minnesota style in the minnesota tradition but we are to have ninety eight percent already have one and ideas a valuable  tool you can hardly function in society today without it i mean think of things that you do in your common everyday life and how frequently you are asked for your id to apply for social security benefits to apply for welfare benefits are so many ways in life to get a drink to get a pack of cigarettes to get on an airplane numerous times you go to the bank get your prescription drugs to vote in a union election to get into the democratic national convention to get into a federal building constantly the use of an id is an important tool in common every day society in this constitutional amendment the required cost is a free state id in the statutory bill we allowed a million two million  dollars in regards to providing that free state id it would also and i believe should include voter education funding as well that's been an important component something i believe strongly in and by we're all working together we can help spread those dollars around to make sure that we way increase voter turnout through this additional effort there are no technology mandate cost to local government in the photo id constitutional amendment there aren't any technology mandates to local government in this constitutional amendment in the language that would go into the constitution it also talks about provisional ballots they're used in forty three other states in minnesota this would expand the ability of the voter to cast a ballot that does not exist today in indiana a similar sized state to minnesota there were less than one provisional ballot per precinct if you take those numbers from indiana to minnesota and photo id states all of the studies and i assure you they have been many of them voter turnout has increased or stayed the same matter of fact it's increased amongst democrats areas more than republican areas and yes some i said well then why do you support it because my motive in my mission is about the integrity of the election system and through that process i believe we can also increase voter turnout not only that there's not been one single court case that has found voter disenfranchisement not one and there have been many for some issues there would say some folks that say well there's no problem that's kind of one of those i don't see any problem have you looked at other organizations have and have found those problems matter of fact in regards to the last presidential election there are still six thousand two hundred twenty four voters who cast a ballot and they were counted and we still cannot find them there are issues and there are problems but i also have heard the comments from some that talk about our system is just fine especially in the context of the recount that was done in the coleman franken campaign and i want to mention that according to minnesota state law when you have a recount you can't look at the first part of the process of the election system you are required by state law on a recount to only look at the end of the system so counting the ballots accurately or recounting them doesn't address the issue of should the ballots some of them even have been in the ballot box to begin with that's really the fundamental issue here and the focus of photo id is on the beginning of the election system the part of registration the part of eligible voters all eligible voters being able to cast their ballot expanding that even with provisional ballots and making sure that it is only eligible voters who are making the decisions that govern trillions of dollars and much power in our country thank you ok thanks representative kiff my or our next speaker is just carolyn jackson good evening thank you john and thank you to the cities of maplewood and roseville for hosting this tonight because we've been trying to teach people what they're actually going to be voting on this fall it seems to make sense you do use an id for almost everything from cashing a check for buying beer i'm always pulling my idea for a things but this is much more than a voter i amendment it is a radical overhaul of our election system in the state of minnesota raise your hand if you know what a provisional ballot is ok i hope that all of you are signed up to be election judges because we're going to need your expertise coming up in the future because they're going to be five hundred thousand provisional ballots and we're going to need people who understand them and know how to work with them this will be the only state in the country that will have both election day a registration and provisional ballots nobody else does this election day registration actually provides greater protection for voters than provisional ballots too provisional ballots were created if you weren't allowed if your name  been accidently dropped from the roster then you could vote a provisional ballot and they could go back and fix it later in minnesota if your name's been accidently dropped you can register right there in the election place but nobody else in the in the whole country has had to do both administer election day registration and provisional ballots we don't know how that's going to work so raise your hand if you know what substantially equivalent identity eligibility verification means you know nobody knows because that's there's a brand new language you know nobody knows because there's no but it doesn't exist anywhere in the united states it doesn't exist in other states election laws and it doesn't exist in minnesota election law but we're going to write that into our constitution and you know what happens when you write language into the minnesota constitution that nobody knows what it means lawsuits lots and lots of lawsuits i like to think of this as the full employment for lawyers amendment because nobody knows what it means and when there's stuff in the constitution that nobody knows what it means that means they're going to be lawsuits and speaking of lawsuits representative kiff meyer mentioned states around the country have had some lawsuits on voter i d and there have been people who have come forward who can't vote in pennsylvania there's been a series of lawsuits in the final standard was whether the state could prove that no one would be disenfranchised and they couldn't prove that so they put a stop the voter id law their advocates have called around and they've called a few thousand people and already identified three hundred people who lack the id to vote and wouldn't be able to vote under that law so there are people who are impacted by this so i talked about lawsuits who's going to be bringing these lawsuits voters who are impacted by this constitutional amendment the legal standard is whether it's an undue burden on this fundamental right so let's talk about some of the voters well poll of rule of voter from crane lake minnesota which is up in st louis county you have to go over to the provisional ballot table there at the provisional ballot table you get a ballot and you fill it out and then he'll fold it up and put it in an envelope and give it to the election judge it is neither cast nor counted it will go into a box at the end of the night the election judge will take that box of a provisional ballots and ship it down to dilute which is the county seat so in the next couple days probably three to five days the voter will have to go get a new id and then he'll go one hundred  thirty five miles down to duluth have his ballot verified and drive one hundred thirty five miles back home is that an undue burden on his constitutional right to vote the second voter let's talk about a deployed military voter right now it's very difficult for our soldiers serving overseas to vote they have to order an absentee ballot fill out their ballot and then mail it and when you're in a combat zone the simple act of mailing a letter is a very difficult thing to do right now we allow them to do what's called self certify and that is they say i am who i say i am and i say i've happy with that you're putting your life on the line for the country so thank you very much and you can vote that way that's fantastic with me and the ship about back and gets counted now in this constitutional amendment says all voters will be subject to substantially equivalent identity and eligibility verification so no matter how it gets implemented there will be one more bureaucratic step for that soldier to go through to vote is that an undue burden on their constitutional right to vote the courts will find out finally i'd like to talk about elderly voters and i think of two women that i know here in minnesota who this would affect the first is a woman that i met at a form and she had lived in arizona and nevada and she moved to minnesota to spend her golden years with her daughter and so her and demanded driver's license expired she had to get a minnesota driver's license so she got her birth certificate she got her first marriage license and her first divorce decree she got her second marriage license and her second divorce decree and she went down to d p s to apply for a driver's license they did not get to her so she went back and forth and back and forth it took her several months and almost a thousand dollars and finally she was able to get a minnesota i d card is that an undue burden on her right to vote the other woman is an elderly african american woman and i am the same age as a civil rights laws in the united states so african americans from a certain part of this country who are older than me very likely do not have a birth certificate when it came time for their mothers to give birth they were not allowed in the hospital they didn't get a birth certificate birth would have been recorded in a family bible or perhaps they got a better certificate but that's not good enough for the state of minnesota this voter is one of those women she's older than i am she's african american she was born in one of those areas of the country she does not have a birth certificate she applied for a minnesota id card and she was tonight she applied for a variance and she was denied she does not have a minnesota id card and she's not likely to get one so now these are women who had people to help them and they had some resources and magine someone who has been rushed to the nursing home because they've fallen and broken their hip how are they going to go through this bureaucratic nightmare in order to vote is that an undue burden on their constitutional right to vote now we'll hear all of enabling legislation that will help enabling legislation cannot fix what the constitution makes wrong the constitution can't be trumped by enabling legislation so we can't go back and  protections later this would be the strict in the stay in the nation every other state that has passed a law this kind has put exceptions into their law even mississippi which is the only state that has looked at this as a constitutional amendment they all had exceptions one l thing i want to mention that will be a cause of lawsuits is the effective date july first two thousand and thirteen all of this is going to have to be put in place by july twenty third the legislature is going to have to go back and forth with the governor and get the law enacted and if they don't what's going to happen with the elections that november if there's no enabling legislation and somebody loses guess what they're going to sue they're going to say this election is invalid this constitutional amendment is complicated it is a radical overhaul we don't know how it's going to work and the best thing you can do is send it back to the legislature with a no thanks mr jackson our next speaker is mr dan mcgrath dan thank you with the exception of several of the united states every industrialized nation on earth requires identification to vote it's such a commonsense obvious thing that pretty much the whole world agrees with it now about provisional ballots this notion that all lection day registrants five hundred thousand and two thousand and eight would be required to cast provisional ballots is not supported by what is actually in the amendment the amendment requires original ballots be provided to people who don't have identification on election day even if every single person in the state of minnesota who currently doesn't have identification failed to get free government issued identification before the upcoming election after this takes effect there would be eighty four thousand maximum and if no one was capable of getting a free identification card before the election those are the only people that would be required to cast a provisional ballot under this amendment the language makes it very clear this eligibility verification step has nothing to do with provisional ballots it doesn't apply to that part of the constitutional amendment we use photo id to protect our financial assets at the bank but how much more is our ballot worth than our checking balance our votes control billions of dollars at the state level and trillions of dollars at the federal level and unfathomable amounts of political power are we to believe that no one would be tempted to steal something of that value another process that we use in banking besides just showing our identification will make a withdrawal is something that is substantially equivalent to that when you go to an a t m the substantial equivalent of showing identification at the collar is using your a t m card and punching in a number the bank considers that substantially equivalent of it's good enough for you to withdraw your money when you make an online transaction with your debit card you provide the card number and security code from the back of the card an expiration date provisional are absentee ballots mail in ballots can be certified by a substantially equivalent process just like we use for common banking transactions so substantially equivalent is really not that mystifying the we can do it for voting and they give you a little history about whole voter id laws began to come about united states after the contentious two thousand election the presidential election that involved countless recounts chads ohio lawsuits former president jimmy carter and former secretary of state james baker formed a commission to investigate how we can improve our nation's election processes they released a report on their findings in two thousand and five and the key recommendation of the carter baker report was to require photo id and make identification available at no charge the carter baker report concluded quote the electoral system cannot inspire public confidence if no safeguards exist to deter or detect fraud or to confirm the identity of voters subsequently indiana put the carter baker recommendations into action in two thousand and five the a finally the appeal to united states supreme court in indiana's water id law was again up held u s justice u s supreme court justice stevens wrote the majority opinion in the case that was known as crawford v marion upholding indiana's water id law he said quote the inconvenience of going to the bureau of more vehicles gathering required documents and posing for a photograph does not qualify as a substantial burden on most voters right to vote or represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting the severity of the somewhat heavily burden heavier burden that may be placed on a limited number of persons such as elderly persons born out of state who may have difficulty obtaining a birth certificate is mitigated by the fact that eligible voters without photo identification may cast provisional ballots there will be counted if they execute the required affidavit at the circuit court clerk's office stevens also referred to indiana's already law specifically as nondiscriminatory minnesota's voter id amendment is based on the opinion of the united states supreme court corporate in the three principles discussed in the opinion first and most obvious that requires in person voters to show photo id it requires the state to provide photo identification sued the state of georgia to stop a new voter id law based on claims of disenfranchisement the judge there of held the georgia law in his ruling he said the point was failure despite their efforts to uncover anyone who can attest to the fact that he or she will be prevented from voting provide significant support for the conclusion of the photo id requirement does not unduly burden the right to vote claims that a voter id requirement will lead to disenfranchisement have been rejected by the courts including the highest court in the land fraud is not a problem in minnesota or the nation once again though the objective evidence in the finding of courts of law completely refute that notion minnesota currently leads the nation in convictions for voter fraud following the two thousand election two after accounting for people who moved shortly after voting six thousand two hundred twenty four election they were distance from two thousand they remain flat for challenge right now on the official border rules the us supreme court noticed that you noted that the united states has a long history of voter fraud that has been well documented by respected journalist and journalists and historians voter fraud has been proven in courts time and again disenfranchisement as a result of voter id whoever has been disproven in the courts the objective evidence is conclusive verifiable facts are irre thank you mr mcgrath our final speaker this evening will be governor arnie carlson governor carlson well thank you very much after after here in the other side talk about how magnificent this amendment is and how such a small tiny burden on all of us a moment's time to come forward and say i support it the problem is it kind of reminds me of a story my father once told he was a swedish immigrant and we were out of the bronx of new york and he was frankly a very good joke teller and during the depression there were a lot of schemes in new york on how to make money pretty quickly and he told a story of this hot dog vendor who worked out of central park in new york and he would take the bun of the hot dog and then he was stick his finger he had a nice rubber frank you know the banker bankers rubber that they used to count bills he would stick it into the bu plaster with mustard and relish the guy would restrict grab it and look around for where his hot dog was and that's kind of what we're going through here tonight i wouldn't be here if what these people said was was it was accurate no way at all the reason i'm here is for several things one is amending the constitution of the state of minnesota is important this is here because a bill passed on a totally partisan vote in the house and senate totally partisan vote in the house and senate and was vetoed by the governor now fortunately democrat republican and independent governors throughout the history of the state of minnesota have vetoed partisan built the most recent example was two thousand and ten on a voter improvement law relative to felons voting which is where the problem that they described so eloquently really exists it was vetoed by governor plenty and it was vetoed because the democrats were for it and the republicans were against it meyer and the other way and he said in his veto message it did not pass on a bipartisan basis it is not a bipartisan bill he is exactly correct i fully subscribe to that we don't want a political system in minnesota where one party takes over both houses and passes an endless array of bills designed to create mischief and give them a political edge in elections today it's the republicans what happens when tomorrow it's the democrats they'll be here screaming and hollering with the exact opposite arguments this any amendment that comes to the constitution should come about as a result one of the study what is the problem that we're trying to solve to what language can we put on the amendment that will resolve that problem and allow the voters to fully understand it and thirdly what are the costs what we have here is i thought carolyn jackson so aptly put it they language substantially equivalent lawyers love that at four hundred dollars an hour they're going to be arguing in our court system making tons of dough pro and con what that language means now these people maybe feel comfortable with what it means but there are people over there who don't and those disagreements can only in a constitutional amendment be resolved in a court of law notice also how there's absolutely no talk whatsoever about the budgetary impact mary kept myers says well cost over a million dollars for voter id and that's really about it in the in the e mail that she sent me she basically says there's really no local government costs and then go unless of course the state mandates that well how do you conduct a statewide election without state mandates absolutely impossible let's take a look at what this is going to actually cost all of us as a taxpayer it's going to cost one well over one hundred million dollars eighty seven county order church have been asked what will the cost be in your county when you add up all the local government because it will be over sixty million dollars the high estimate is seventy four million dollars now that's going to go on top are property taxes over the past ten years we have seen the highest property tax increases in the state of minnesota now we're going to add on to local government a mandate that's going to cost them somewhere north of sixty million dollars then you look at the state because the state when they convene in january will have a budget deficit of approximately four point four billion dollars and on top of that they're go another ten to fifteen million dollars of course on this and if they decide to pick up the local government costs are going to have a lot more we're talking cutting somebody else's part of the budget to mak accommodation for this amendment and the individual cross which carol and i thought covered very very well our estimate and this by the way is a study that was done by the universe by hamlyn university professor david chills is one of the most respected political science scientists in minnesota and the group that he has put together and they put out an excellent report now for those of you that are inclined to debunk these as i see a gentleman here doing i would ask this it's incumbent upon the pro pones to come together with their budget they did not do it in the legislature and they have not done it since you know passout mar for miers e mail and you can contrast yourself a cost of about two point eight million dollars or a cost of well over one hundred million dollars and those are serious costs and let me tell you what the  say if this amendment were to pass and the costs were transferred they're going to say oh the people forced it on its i can you can guarantee one thing the legislature will not suspend its pay for a year to pay for this they will not take responsibility for the mischief that they have created nor will they take responsibility for the star tribune i think reports something like two hundred  fifteen thousand people whose votes will be placed in jeopardy they will not take responsibility for that either so it's up to you and me to send it back to the legislature tell him to form a bipartisan commission make it professional have public input democrat republican independent tall small short fat whatever everybody have part of the process so that all of us is minnesotans can feel comfortable and have an election process continue that we're deeply proud of thank you thank you governor well we'll move to our first set of questions and these questions will be directed to the panel the first question will be answered by the pro side and mr mcgrath and and representative king will have two minutes to respond and then we will provide an opportunity for the other side to respond to the first question and both sides have already touched on this what is the expected cost to the minnesota taxpayer of implementing a voter i is the free state id that is the expected cost i would also expect and as we supported in the statutory bill that were there would also be money spent in regards to voter education that is a good thing and for people who do not already have a state id or free id like that it is important to realize they're getting a significant benefit from this constitutional amendment a tool as such as a photo i that andrew young former african american mayor of atlanta georgia said at the national association of secretaries of state meeting that it was a disenfranchisement to not require it he felt that strongly about it and so i think we have good standing with jimmy carter andrew young and many others as well that are supporting a photo id required but the cost is the free state id voter education and those are the two essences that are in the constitutional amendment some of these other gargantuan amounts thrown out are unsubstantiated and their foundation is questionable they are based upon numbers such as mr mcgrath pointed out that start from an assumption that is so huge and so out of line with common basic understanding of how you are able to have an id and so when you start with the with  assumptions that are fundamentally flawed the conclusion will be flawed as well thank you they were just to add to that real quick the local governments are not expected or demanded to incur any costs under the voter id a moment when people talk about these huge local government costs you have to ask them what are they going to spend the money on and where in this constitutional amendment does it say they have to spend them all right i'm going to redo the constitutional amendment first of all i am going to probably  every one of my answers all voters voting in person must present valid government issued photo identification before receiving about the state must issue photographic identification no charge to an eligible voter who does not have a form of  section of voter unable to present government issued photo identification must be permitted to submit a provisional ballot that every precinct has to have a provisional ballot station that costs money a provisional ballot must only be counted if the voter certifies a provisional matter ballot in the manner provided by law all voters including those not voting in person must be subject to substantially equivalent identity and eligibility verification prior to about being cast or counted that means when you register on election day you have to be your eligibility has to be proven before your vote is counted cast or counted and that's a cost on your local government issue or so gov you want to talk about the i think we have to be very careful when people present an item that we know intuitively costs money and they tell us it really doesn't cost us any money this is kind of like going to a car lot and buying a car and you ask a question well how does it work and what kind of mileage does it get you say well we don't really know yet but it really works well and we want you to take our word for all right i'll do that  what is a cost well we can tell you that but after you buy it i will mail you the bill i think we're in titled not to have their criticism of a budget that was put together by experts at hamlin university i think we're entitled to see their budget they're the ones that are proposed this they're the ones that took this through two houses of the minnesota legislature without once presenting a budget not even requiring a fiscal note and then we wonder why we haven't balanced our budget with massive shifts massive borrowings in ten years and why we're going into the next session with a four point four billion dollar deficit if what they say is accurate then we have eighty seven county auditor's that really don't know their business and i'll tell you i was state auditor not state treasurer and one of the things or secretary of state whatever i was not sure i'm not even shorts or promotion or a demotion but one of the things i learned in the audit process of local government is how extraordinarily well overall local government works and i say that most sincerely and the higher up we go the less efficient and the less cost effective we are and the one thing i know about county auditor is they know their business and i'll give you i was on the radio show this morning and i got a call in and let me just just read you the number and i thought it was kind of interesting cass county estimated that the cost per ballot would be about  people but really these are serious cause and people are very very deeply concerned because most governmental entities are frankly broke and having a difficult time balancing their budgets hey thank you governor next question for the panel and this will be presented first to the anti side to vote no people if the voter identification amendment passes how will it affect absentee voting and what are the problems with provisional ballots all right that's two questions but that's ok with absentee voting all voters must be subject to substantially equivalent identity verification and i did a legal search this afternoon on a substantially equivalent i know there has to be something out there the only thing i could find was in regards to patent law so that i are makes aspirin that's marked bare and johnson and johnson makes aspirin that's marked with a j those are substantially equivalent that's the only sort of thing has nothing to do with voting on we don't know what substantially equivalent me how can you coming up and presenting an id to an election judge be anything like presenting a lot of voter id to your mom who's going to certify your absentee ballot or for soldiers who self certify nobody knows how that's going to work this is brand new language and it's really strange as far as a provisional ballot goes there are two ways the provisional ballots going to work the first is what we talked about with the idea you don't have an id you go cast a provisional ballot and that would be a separate area in a polling place so places that have tight precincts right now they'll have to get another room for the provisional ballot table higher moral election judges train those election judges on how to do it then they'll have to process a provisional ballots how do you secure them how do you get them to take them back to the city clerk's office do you take them to the counties office how are they counted how is your secrecy of your ballot protected if you're only one in the county and they verify your ballot and it goes up i want every is going to know how you voted right and then with election day registration and hopefully someone's going to ask a question about election day registration provisional ballots may come into play there and that's a come tiredly different question altogether but that's basically a provisional ballot is one more station at the precinct and they are not counted at the time of the election ok and a vote no response i'm sorry vote yes response ok how are absentee and provisional ballots how absentee ballots affected and what are provisional ballots absentee voting and will not be affected in any noticeable way to the overwhelming majority of people use them absentee ballots on the signature and vote currently require that you record your identification number on the signature envelope underneath that space there's a little check box and says i don't have any id the check box will go away you'll have to get an id number to record on your signature envelope and as i described earlier that is substantially equivalent that's good enough for the banks it's good enough to guard our money it should be good enough to guard our ballots well there is no ballots in indiana in two thousand and eight high voter turnout election they had four thousand provisional ballots cast statewide superimposed on the minnesota's four thousand one hundred three voting precincts we're talking about an average of less than one provisional ballot per precinct and i were talking about building a loom hiring two election judges to babysit an average of less than one provisional ballot per precinct prison all ballots are a fail safe ballot as the supreme court has called it the used in forty three other states it's not some apocalyptic plot it's a simple mechanism to make sure that no one is ever turned away from the polling place without a chance to vote our current election systems are sometimes turns people away without a chance to vote if they can't find someone to vouch for them they don't have a utility bill in their name they don't get to vote they're turned away disenfranchised the provisional ballot won sure that that never happens you know if i may i'm beginning to learn more about indiana than i ever wanted to know i honestly came here tonight thinking that we were going to discuss an amendment to the minnesota constitution and i thought i would be helpful if the proponents would come in with a study that said this is what it does this is why we need it these are the violations that have occurred and here are the costs and they come in telling us all about georgia all about other states but virtually nothing about minnesota the photo voter id should be called or the violation should be called voter impersonation they keep referring to voter fraud that bill was brought up in two thousand and ten and mary kept my voted against it now she may have had good reasons but then for heaven's sakes at least amend it and correct the problem with felons voting that is the problem they keep pretending is is is the problem of voter impersonation i don't think they can name one case of voter impersonation when mike freeman the county attorney of hennepin county went through all the various violations he came up with one it was a felon and it came up with no voter impersonation nationally n y u issued a report and their report essentially said over a ten year period from two thousand two thousand and ten they surveyed i think it was something like six hundred forty nine million votes were cast and over that period they found thirteen cases of voter impersonation and over four hundred people who died as a result of being struck by lightning now those are the facts but as it pertains to minnesota i'm not aware that voter in person ation has been a problem think of first of all they pretend like we have no voter id process today when you go to vote we do it works out extraordinarily well and it even involves postal system it verifies is dressed and who you are but here we have the photo id and i think carolyn has laid out very well how hard it's going to be when two boards in county got together and discussed the impact our nursing homes might my numbers are roughly right out of twenty four residents in one home only one had the proper identification that would meet the test of this constitutional amendment twenty three did not in the other when it was something like seven had the proper identification out of fifty four that live there elderly people are in panic about this students are in panic students to go to st cloud state and live in rochester have to go back to rochester to vote don't tell me that's not an impediment how many of us here would would would drive one hundred and thirty one hundred fifty miles to vote governor can i interrupt you please thank you where we're getting out of balance somewhat and i'd like to offer some additional time to the pro side you know governor i am kind of thinking maybe you were secretary of state from the way you're talking there you know i have appreciated in the past governor when you have spoken and i've spoken highly of you for the knowledge that you have but also for myself the realization that when we did the sad story bill that we had no budget of course we had if i did not know that we had a fiscal know it i'm not quite sure when you kind of mixing up some of the big budget or the particular one but for the photo id statutory bill we did get a fiscal note through the secretary of state office but in the beginning of the process it was a bigger price tag by the time we had the final statutory bill it was a total of three and a half million and one million was for a software development so the two and a half million was for the free id and for voter education that is what the legislature voted on and i think it's important to just recognize that we did have that the center for the american experiment a nonpartisan group has done a study they found that there is savings accrued to the election system it isn't just a matter of provisional ballots which by the way the same kind of ballot and the lope that is used for voting in absentee ballot can be used for a provisional ballot as well people are familiar with that that's not a totally strange thing my big thing though is that voter impersonation if you're an election judge in a stranger standing in front of you and doesn't have their i d how do you know the are who they say they are how do you know and you don't you could have voter impersonate happening right in front of you but without a photo id requirement you'd be missing it and so this whole nonsense of saying i have to come up with this when i'm denied the tool that would help make sure you are who you say you are is just amazing logic or illogic as i would like to call it and so it is important who you are showing your i d all of us working together to make sure that they have that i d that is not an insurmountable gargantuan problem as you might have it be portrayed here it is not many of those same seniors were told when they came into a nursing home or assisted living give up your d you don't need it so we can remedy that as they come we can help them just like they do in many other ways so when you come into those facilities my sister came into the group home first thing she needed was a state id this is not an insurmountable it is fairly obvious and fairly appropriate that we accomplish this and it will be cost effective as well i can name three people who can l frank dorothy cooper and evelyn collier because they can't get a state issued id i have not heard the proponents name one person who lost their vote because of voter in person nation this is not a problem it doesn't exist there was a fiscal know with house fell to ten representatives bill that was vetoed it did not cover all the costs indiana had a fiscal note they estimated seven hundred thousand dollars to provide the free i d s it ended up costing ten million dollars georgia had education they had about up spending about five to six million dollars educating voters and in fact the federal court barred voter id from going into place until voters knew what was happening and so this is a very expensive undertaking in one of the reasons that indiana is interesting is that they have about the same number of voters as we do their state has more than a million people an artist their voter turnouts about thirty nine percent but their vote they about the same number of voters as minnesota our voter turnout is seventy eight percent so it isn't it is really apples to oranges but as far as cosco when they have about the same number of voters it cost them ten million dollars only to provide the free i d s ok mr mcgrath you can have the last word  i'm good ok next question is actually related to the some of the issues that we were just discussing so i think there's a good segue here what evidence is there that states that have voter photo id requirements have reduced voter fraud and what is the experience in other states that haven't acted this legislation or amendment and this this question starts on the pro side well voter fraud is something that has been well documented throughout the nation it's a common sense thing that requiring identification is going to reduce voter fraud that involves using a false identity or even voting while ineligible thinking that you can get away with just saying was it me a signature on the line is insufficient the whole thing is insufficient we wouldn't accept vouching for example to would clearly put a stop to that hole in the process and probably eliminate it entirely the voter id amendment will still permit some residen establishment under the statutory process but everyone will have to show id so the six thousand some people that we currently don't know who they are where they are that are flagged for challenge on the border rolls right now would no longer be we would know who they are we would know where they live and would have confidence that fraud isn't occurring i'm not sure what the statistics are in other states of how much fraud has been suppressed by voter identification ok we hear these numbers tossed around the six thousand number that's not verified anywhere the only number that really makes a difference is the number of convictions and these numbers get tossed around and they they've been debunked over and over and over again by the secretary  nonsense this this just makes no sense as far as studies go for reduction of voter fraud there's nothing like that out there there's no study from indiana there's no study from georgia looking at voter fraud at all the studies have all gone around the impact on people who are affected by this and there it preliminary i haven't read any final studies the most interesting one was a study that was proposed and this is just trivia and we're here to educate  studied looking at who cast the provisional ballots and why they cast a provisional ballot and whether they went back and had their id checked and that study has not been finalized so i don't have a result of it but it'll be interesting to know to see how this voter i actually affects voters who go to the trouble of casting a provisional ballot but there's no study been done in minnesota that will show that this reduces anything there is no study done in indiana or georgia it's just a political tool ok thank you next question amendments to the u s in minnesota constitutions have generally been enacted to protect or extend citizen rights not limit them why should this provision be in the constitution and not in legislation and the dorsai has an opportunity to go first well obviously we don't think it should be in the constitution the history of voting in this country has been a expansion of voting rights when it was first founded the only people who could vote were white men who held property and then the property requirements dropped and then the fifteenth amendment was passed and the franchise was extended to all men and then the nineteenth amendment was passed and the franchise was extended to women in one thousand nine hundred sixty four the twenty fourth amendment was passed which outlawed the poll  around the same time the voting rights act was passed to make the promise of the fifteenth amendment real so that all qualified voters could vote and to ensure that there were no jim crow laws and then in nine hundred seventy one the twenty sixth amendment was passed to extend the franchise to voters who are eighteen years and older it's been a history of expanding here in minnesota we instituted election day registration in one thousand nine hundred four and the result of that has been the highest turnout in the country we've had the highest turnout in the country for as long back i've only looked at the numbers for the last ten years but i think since one thousand nine hundred four we have led the nation voter turnout i don't see why we would want to limit people's ability to vote ok thank you and from the pro side where there is no question that in our minnesota state constitution we have article seven which is about elections from that they have been derived twelve chapters of election law so the founders in regards to the original document of the constitution started with a portion of the constitution addressing elections from that twelve chapters of election law they work together but in this case since in other states there were questions about its constitutionality in the most recent efforts for statutory bills it seemed appropriate i mean how more bipartisan can you get then to put this constitutional amendment on the ballot for all of the people democrats republicans independents screen every political party to have their say you can't get more bipartisan than the voters themselves considering this question and having this wonderful conversation about a constitutional amendment that is constructive and positive for society as a whole this is your election election day is really when the people govern it's the day when you make those decision elect representatives and even voting on this constitution mean it was put in the constitution to have constitutional amendments so how appropriate for the rules of the election process in a high level policy way that you the people have the opportunity to vote on this constitutional amendment it's very very appropriate and i think it's a very fair way to start is by having it in the constitution and following through as we have done with other sections of the minnesota state constitution on election law to continue that further in regards to more of the information that you as the voters would like to have that is true now and it will continue to be true as we go forward it's very appropriate to have it in the constitution now if i could add to that the border idea amendment does protect your right to vote protects all of our right to vote because if you are if there is voter fraud in the system your right to speak and be heard in a government is taken away from it stolen by people that commit acts of fraud in our election system and as i said there is no way that you can believe you can't look at our election system and election there were distraction and understand the value of those ballots and believe that no one would be tempted to steal it from you and disenfranchise your voice you know i really take very strong exception to this and i really do minnesota is looked upon nationally as the state for clean and open elections we are the envy of this nation these people have been painting a picture that is dark and getting darker by the minute you would think that we have criminals hiding behind every single voter both we have women dressed up as men and personating somebody else so they can vote they have not come up with one single case of voter impersonator not one and then they come back here and tell us what a terrible system we have we have a system that requires people to take an oath to show identification to show identification where they live if i came in with a photo passport under the care of my or bill a united states passport with my photograph that does not qualify that's incorrect that is correct that they define what government issued id will be it's not just any i d governor restrained from our format if you'd like to include your comment i'll then ask the pro side to respond is it is it balanced ok and we we were going to give two minutes to one side and then two minutes to the other we can certainly go back and forth to read if it's all right with you folks no speakers and the first question is for representative can you explain more about how voter photo i and poll books will help to ensure more integrity at polling places electronic poll books are not a new idea very  if you use your credit card or sometimes even your driver's license or state id card and you swipe and through an electronic reader and they are able to take the same information that is on the front of your id card and be able to collect that information so it is a concept that can be very helpful to speeding up the election process that is not required by this constitutional amendment however it is something that the ramsey county director of elections said it's not a matter of if we get a tool like the electronic poll books but that some day we will get them in just a matter of when not if because they will help speed things up especially the laborious hand data entry that are larger counties spend a lot of time and so very can be a very cost effective tool for them and set of the hand data entry later on however it is not mandated nor is it required by this constitutional amendment so i just wanted to be that's a different subject from photo id so well i just was going to follow up and say that it works well with a photo id those two together and i'm sure we'll manage on her time as have to but i thought interesting point though was when we presented the possibility of using electronic poll book it was in the statutory bill and i asked the secretary of state office for a fiscal note it was about fifty million dollars well for that and so the realization though is that when the secretary of state himself had an electronic poll book concept that he had his statement was that he could do that nearly for free and almost immediately two very broad ranging things my idea fifty million his idea nearly free i would suspect that this is one of those things that local units of government need to consider whether this is cost effective for them but it is not a mandate ok thank you the next question is for miss carolyn jackson throughout the history of the u s various levels of government haven't acted legal barriers to voting and most of them have been struck down by the courts how is this amendment any different and do you think it would survive a constitutional challenge well i'm not on the united states supreme court so i don't know the answer but i can tell you something one thing about putting it in the constitution and the proponents have been correct about this by putting this in the constitution the minnesota supreme court would not be able to protect us because this is the most recent thing put in the constitution is a ruling last you can't look at other parts the constitution say oh no that is in conflict they would have to be subsumed to the new language now there have been there's been one challenge in the united states supreme court and that's the indiana case and that was a facial challenge and so the challenges are going to have to get into legal ease on this a little bit of facial challenges by looking at the language of the statute not any facts or any people is that constitutional and they looked at it and they said yes it is and then there was a bill that was in georgia that was on hold at that time or a law and because of the indiana case the georgia law was allowed to stand now currently there is what is called as and as applied challenge in wisconsin and they've identified fourteen people in wisconsin the a c l u has who would not be able to vote because of wisconsin's voter id law now their state supreme court has put their state law on hold because it's in the law and not the constitution so the a c l u is case which is a federal case it would go to the federal united states supreme court is on hold but eventually there will be and as applied challenge that goes to the united states supreme court and there will be real people who can't vote and will look at their specific facts situation and balance whether the burden put on them is justified by a nonexistent fraud that this is supposed to fight so that a little explanation it's adopted by the we the people that's going to be the law of the land period it could potentially and probably will be challenged in a federal court but we're we're we're talking about the people that are unable to get identification on able to vote because of a border d law and we've heard these kind of claims before in the georgia case leave open borders common cause and double a c p brought people forth to the judge that claimed they would be able to vote because of the voter id requirement when the judge started asking them questions well did you know you could get identification for free under this law did you know that they've got the assistance for people going to benefit cation and its own oh i didn't realize i could do that to you know that you could use you know this particular kind of id to vote oh i didn't realize that and what ended up happening is that every person who has brought forth that they claim to be unable to vote turned out they could have they just didn't know how to go about getting identification so education is going to be a critical part of an acting to voter id amendment and the legislature is planning to spend as the supreme court mandates millions of dollars on a voter education campaign there is no one in the state of minnesota who is legitimate who will be unable to guide them if occasion and vote  ok thank you next question for mr mcgrath in regard to the claim minnesota leads the nation in the number of voter fraud how would minnesota rank with other states and looking at the rate  percentage of votes cast that were illegal he repeats the question i read in the question has written i think if i were to interpret it better here in regard to the claim minnesota leads the nation in the number of voter fraud how would minnesota rank with other states with regard to voter fraud well i haven't analyzed it on a percentage basis and i haven't created a top ten list of voter fraud states what i do know is that prior to the two thousand election the highest number of reported recorded convictions of voter fraud from a single action happened in jackson county missouri in one nine hundred thirty six there were two hundred fifty six cases since that time no one has achieved anywhere close to the two hundred numbers that we've seen in minnesota that is by the way just the tip of the iceberg our independent research is what caused this not our system the system failed to catch and it required mr majority's research and twisting some arms of county attorneys to  this information isn't just made up out of thin air it was provided by the secretary of state's office it's in the statewide voter registration system it's available to anybody that wants to ask for it and pay the fee for getting the discreetly office all right we're making up numbers now the number that is out there is two hundred people two hundred people were convicted of voting while they were on parole or probation that's less than five one hundred of a percent of the votes cast in two thousand and eight all right any engineer would kill for that level of accuracy ninety nine point nine nine nine five percent accurate and the reason that these people were able to vote is first of all that they're free they're on probation or parole there is no database that lists every person who is continuing to serve a felony sentence in minnesota that is on probation or parole the way it works is when you are on probation and you're out you have meet with your probation officer and they meet pretty fairly regularly but then if your life goes on pretty well the probation office says go on only meet with me if you need to if you get into trouble if they don't have their address you don't know where they are and that person very likely things but they're free they're done they don't have to meet with their probation officer anymore they're only two hundred of those people who are convicted and convictions are the only number that matter i'm sorry not making up numbers but one thousand nine nine is the total number of people who voted while ineligible the two hundred who were convicted were either proven to have voted while ineligible knowing that they were ineligible to vote because this is a standard for conviction or the admitted that they knew they were ineligible to vote the other ones largely got off without prosecution because they claimed that they did not know they were ineligible to vote or the statute of limitations expired before they could prosecute and as i said these are people that knew they were ineligible to vote did so anyway the two hundred convictions just the tip of the iceberg if i may we keep talking about these felons and there is a problem with with felons who are not entitled to vote actually voting there's no question about it numbers aren't quite as high as the other side would have are but that's not the point the point is that this amendment does not address that problem because that's the dilemma this problem did come up in the legislative session of two thousand and ten a bill was passed and vetoed by the governor and he said it wasn't sufficiently partisan i have no problem with that but the point is the subject was up mary kept my or didn't come up to correct the problem then mcgrath and his moral majority or whatever didn't come up to correct the problem whatever the group is i'm serious i don't know what the name of the group but aside from that they didn't correct the problem and they had an opportunity now that coming in with voter in person a should law when we have no vote one person nation so we're giving a patient medicine for an illness that they do not have so i would prefer if we're going to discuss this amendment that we discuss why it is here and what offenses have occurred that bring it here this amendment does require eligibility verification for all voters whether there are advance registrants or people in the polling place you know will felons swards of the state that have lost their right to vote non citizens that are known to the state will all be prevented from voting under the sun that is not correct because we don't have the database to to cross to cross file do we know we do not and if we can open the door to the database we also open the door to the costs that are involved and mary kept meyer made it abundantly clear that was a door she didn't want to have open but if you want to open it i'll be happy to have another debate with you on that subject and last word from the pro side representative of the true state for eight years you  want to describe the databases that are used to verify that ability of borders absolutely the current state voter registration system is a very powerful system it was developed in house by union employees in the secretary of state office with also the help of other contractors that were hired but it is our own employees our own minnesota people that designed the system and did a very good job and so those systems work together with the department of public safety they receive data from the social security office they receive data from a variety of others from the courts and so this kind of opportunity here to interact with them things that are already going on are done before election day for those who pre register and so these things are available to us they are there they are being used currently and so and certainly not of that as we go further more and  more with our technology this gets even easier and as the director of elections in our two larger counties that just a matter of time to have more kinds of technology because it will save them labor costs it will enable them to comply with the help america vote act which requires immediate entry of voter registration information which now is taking up to somewhere around three to six months so i think technology we're not back in the hicks here we are quite doing quite well and quite capable of doing many of these things in the future as well with our state government employees and with other tools that are available to us this is not the hicks we are minnesota and we can do this governor thank you if we had this database then it raises interesting questions why are all these felons voting apparently it's not working very well i tell you the reason is the databases are all in silos when we tried to put together the database for the tobacco lawsuit that you'll recall involves several hundred thousand and it took us over a year at a cost of over eight million dollars and part of it and that is just a fraction of what a database would look like when you have three million voters and you have many many more silos that you've got to break into and create an integrated system that becomes expensive so on one hand mary kept myers telling us we have a superb system but she has to acknowledge of all these numbers that they say are true it certainly isn't working very well and the photo id is not going to solve that problem because you are old that that's old stuff in the silos i've served in the legislature for the last four years state government finance committee heard much discussion worked with representative keith downie these things and the state t director that's just i know that things in the past maybe were different but things are different today and our capacities to do that but the biggest thing is that we are doing it today for those who are preregistered we're just not taking advantage of that and using that for those who register to vote on election day and so you have an equal treatment of your voters those who pre register go through this nothing to do with silos has to do with systems that are in place right now and then you have the people come to register to vote on election day are not not subject to those same kinds of things that are taken care of for those who pre register we just want equal treatment for all eligible voters and these are simple tools they don't even have to have technology what we had was a real old kind of technology that's called paper list that we had in our statutory bill so that smaller townships or other areas where it was cost effective can use a simple alphabetical paper list called a challenge list this is not something hugely complicated or difficult we just need to make use of the technology and tools that are there for us today if i may i've been attending the governor has a task force on election integrity that's been meeting for the last two years to look specifically at the problem of felons voting and the first thing we did we had the minnesota courts the minnesota corrections the county association the city association sit down and talk about what the state is so we're conflating a bunch of things here when we're talking about databases when i was talking specifically about felons the shocking realization was there is no so single database that tells people who are currently eligible to vote because of a felony conviction that particular database does not exist right now and it would be very expensive and you'd have to do a lot of work to put that together but right now that particular database does not exist now the statewide voter registration system that representative talk about is a wonderful system it's one of the jewels that makes us the best state for voting in the united states so we have a list of voters right now there are people out here who are not registered this list is run against a number of different databases and that's what we're talking about silos maybe they can talk to each other but that they're run separately they're run against the driver's license database they're run against the department of health database to see if you're alive they're running into social security administration database to see if you're alive there run against the postal service to see if you've moved and there are several others but it's run against all issues there's no unified database of people that type of data that comes from different agencies that lists all the eligibility factors that is where we're talking about silos those would have to all be put together and created and accessible by the voting place for substantially equivalent eligibility verification at the time of voting when you elect when your vote register to vote on election day your information is then afterwards run against these databases and if there's a problem it's investigated and then it's a felony violation if you've lied about that so election day redskins are run against the same checks only they're subjected to a higher penalty if they've gotten it wrong than if you do it before hand it's   governor carlson why do you think the bill an act in the legislation for this amendment was passed in straight party lines why do republicans and democrats see this issue so polarized well i would has to hesitate to suggest that there's any political mischief in the state legislature let me answer it this way if i believe we are a polarized society and sadly both parties have a very difficult time working with each other and i think part of the process is the caucus system which encourages extremism discourages the broad middle but part of it also is this holier than thou attitude that somehow some people are able to talk to a higher power and the rest of us aren't and therefore we have certain rights to impose upon you and i find that very bothersome this democracy was founded on the notion that every citizen not most not some not a majority but every citizen has a right to vote and the only ones that are disqualified at the mentally ill incompetent and under guardianship felons etc but all the rest of us are right to vote and there's a clear understanding that we have right to equal access and it's not unusual for political parties democrat or republican to abuse the power of being in the majority and to put together legislation that will make it difficult for the other side to get their voters to the troops i was very suspicious as a legislator of same day registration extremely suspicious history  proven me wrong i'm delighted big but it was as a result of that it expanded voter participation and that's what makes minnesota so very very unique in our system is a clean system it's a good system and it's a system that should always encourage participation and should never allow political mischief to be written into the you know through to the minnesota constitution and from the process well i think we'll probably share this little bit but i thought it was interesting in taking a look at some previous veto letters that the governor issued to election laws and some of his comments and one of the reasons why i've admired governor carlson in the past because of some of those activities but you know one of the things he says it was an individual societal obligation to take the initiative to reregister when there was a law that would have done it automatically said no individual has a societal obligation to take the initiative governor also said that finally democracy is not supposed to be easy we have a duty not to cheapen what our forebears dreamed of and fought for and so there is without question and maybe even possibly in the future governor as you may have thought same day which by the way was passed on a partisan vote but that made me think different maybe you'll change your mind in the future also when the photo id constitution amendment passes and some years down the road you will find that some of the fears and some of those things are going on have not come to pass either certainly for us bill that representative meyer authored twenty eleven was being debated in the legislature star tribune paul at that time showed that it had eighty percent public support you don't get to eighty percent support in any state i don't think certainly not in a sort of with just one political party but it was a majority of every political stripe in support of that bill but it was still the will of the people was thwarted by governor dayton and that in that respect so it's not a partisan thing it  is among certain members of the political class but among the rank and file is just a common sense thing it's not a democrat or republican issue it's a fairness issue this is not about photo id this is about amending the constitution of minnesota this is about a radical rewrite of how we run elections in this state it will dramatically change election day registration and there's no way it can be run exactly the way it is now under this constitutional amendment there is no way you could have substantially equivalent eligibility verification given the tools we have right now without one of two things happening one is you can end election day registration not a problem then it's the easiest cheapest thing to do in response to this constitutional amendment the other option is that everybody who elect who votes on election day cast a provisional ball five hundred thousand people registered to vote on election day in two thousand and eight there will be five hundred thousand provisional ballots we don't know how it's going to work no state in the union has both election day registration and provisional ballots and then if somehow or other by magic all of these things the health department the driver's license data the court data the social security administration the post office can all be consolidated by july first and thirteen then you can have a system where you take a magic card and maybe it's your driver's license and you can swipe it and you can access all those different databases at one time now in rural minnesota that's an impossibility because they don't have high speed internet access so magically by july first two thousand and thirteen we're going to institute high speed internet access to greater minnesota that would be wonderful where you have money we don't have the capacity to do that but that would be wonderful it would bring the twenty first century to the first reaches of our state i would love that but it's very expensive and it can't be done by july first of next year so instead they're going to get paper so one of the databases that we run against is the death records from the department of health you'd have to have the list of everybody who's ever died in minnesota at every single precinct how are you going to have that many pages to rifle through is carolyn jackson still alive also here's the j s let's see how many people named jackson have died since records were beginning to keep in minnesota is she still really alive this is ridiculous so that's not an option as one of two things and election day registration or provisional ballots for every election day registering this question started on the no side so the vote yes side should have the final word what's being suggested here about forcing all voters registering on election day to use provisional ballots is not supported by the language of the amendment it doesn't say that it's very specific that people who don't have a b will cast provisional ballots the amendment doesn't contemplate that identity and eligibility won't be able to establish the spot in the point place you don't need to run against the history of everyone that's ever to establish someone's eligibility that's hyperbole that's it's ridiculous ok we've got time for one more question and it goes to the panel  d this response should start on the on the pro side our efforts to control voter fraud likely to result in voter suppression no that hasn't been the situation in any other state that's an act of voter id certainly not the intent of the amendment with what's going to happen here is the people who are on the margins of society that are having a difficult time getting around in life are going to suddenly find us a little bit easier to get around in l because the state's going to make identification available at no charge identification they can use to rent an apartment to get a job to open a bank account to integrate into society in ways that there are unable to because of the lack of  mitt romney that's a fact that's because in the state is been polling very much to not go for mitt romney it's close it's a toss up state but he said we'll be able to suppress enough votes that we can give the state that's what he said now whether that's true or not i can't verify that but that's a fact that he stated that i want to go back to provisional ballots very quickly it's not hyperbole when my registration is run it is run against a database of who's dead in the state of minnesota ok the department of health death records and that's everybody who's died in the state of minnesota and that is one of the databases that checks my eligibility to vote and it checks eligibility votes of this that's a fact it with identification in hand you don't need to confirm that someone is alive that's to prevent identity fraud the identification proves that you are who you say you are the fact that you're standing there proves that you're breathing so that that check isn't going to be necessary and as far as this p there will be further they'll be further forums on this issue and if you'd like more information please give us if you'd like to be alerted to these additional human rights forums please sign in here and we'll make sure you get a copy of the information the sign is not required but if you'd like more information on this issue and other issues such as the minutes such as another project of the minnesota republican majority which is the gay marriage amendment in two weeks from now it will be co sponsoring the forum on that amendment which also was highly partisan and we'd like to provide you with an opportunity to ask questions in two weeks at the community center will be co sponsoring that and again if you'd like born from ation on this human rights issue please give us your name and address thank you folks i want to say thank you again to the human rights commissions that have worked together today to be able to have this opportunity i appreciate your efforts and your work thank you to maplewo again in regards to this constitutional amendment and its value of being discussed so much amongst the people and their support and their opposition being fairly debated it is a board to recognize that thought i'd read just a few more quotes from in this case from another court the absence of prosecutions as explained by the endemic under enforcement of minor criminal laws minor as they appear to the public and prosecutors all events and by the extreme difficulty of apprehending a voter impersonator i think it's important to recognize that the courts have seen the tremendous difficulty and that without an i even know in another court fraud you don't voting effectively dilutes the votes of lawful voters by instituting requirements to guard against the abuse of the elective franchise a state protects the right of lawful voters to exercise their full share of this franchise in order to protect that compelling interest a state may enact generally a flexible and even handed restrictions that protect the integrity and reliability of the electoral process so i think that the realisation here is the courts have spoken to very very important things the question of the vote or person nation and the difficulty in catching and the importance of having a photo id so you can deter it or detect it and the most important thing is prevented we come into society i'm a nurse we do prevention we don't pat ourselves on the back and at all  sense that if we haven't prevented it will take care of you but if at all possible we want to prevent why do we have to have an election system that's based upon catch and prosecute and meantime the ballot is cast and counted and disenfranchise somebody else why do we have to do that when something like a photo id can be used and detour detect and give greater public confidence to the voting process what's radical is some of the interpretations and the numbers and the statements i mean it's just like they've taken the most extreme way restricting things by their own interpretation not by anything that this constitutional amendment has  itself the language that it has without an id how do we know you are who you say you are how do you know about two point three million pre registered voters coming into the polling place and we have no assurance that the voter intitled to the ballot is actually the one voting you can go through all that checking databases and the things you want to do ahead of time that's not the issue that is one of them and equal treatment of those who pre register and those who register on election day before the ballot is cast not after but when you come into the polling place on election day such as the gentleman who said to me my mother moved to wisconsin but i had her mail forwarded to my address so i could help take care of things for her much to my surprise her voter registration was changed to his address and she doesn't live with me and he had his concerns from the two thousand and eight election from the secretary of state office itself they are challenge six thousand two hundred twenty four voters those are real not made up from the secretary of state office there were twenty three thousand but the county officials and local officials checked they looked but they're still six thousand two hundred twenty four add to that one thousand about one thousand one hundred felons who should have been kept out but weren't the difference in that election for the top office in the state was three hundred twelve it should be decided by eligible voters entitled to vote not those who aren't minnesota's spends money to catch a prosecutor after the election we spend money on counting we spend money on recounting and currently local election officials already work together with the secretary of state office to conduct elections the measure of a good election system is hardly measured by counting or recounting ballots that never should have been there to begin with just because we have the end of the system down is not the measure to use the entire system should be conducted with integrity from registration casting a ballot to a recount is also being sure that eligible voters are not disenfranchised by the dishonest to think that liars cheaters and steelers exist all around us but some only angels come to vote is naive and lacks common sense the photo id amendment to keep it easy to vote but hard to cheat thank you ok and the case for vote no from the anti side would start by reading the link to the amendment and then let the governor closed all voters voting in person must present a valid government issued photographic identification before receiving a valid the state must issue photographic identification at no charge to an eligible voter who does not have a form of identification meeting the requirements of this section a voter unable to present a government issued photo deficit and if occasion must be permitted to submit a provisional ballot a provisional ballot must only be counted if the voter certifies the provisional ballot in the manner provided by law all voters including those not voting in person must be subject to substantially equivalent identity and eligibility verification prior to a ballot being cast or counted and this will be effective july first two thousand and thirteen gov now there's only two oh just me well first of all i want to thank all of you very much for your attendance democracy does to a large extent belong to those who show up and i think it's important that we have these kinds of forums frankly i would love to have a whole set of debates with with the people on my right around the state i mean that most sincerely because this is a very important amendment what we're basically doing is scrapping the system that we currently have which i think it's fair to say most observers will say that minnesota has the finest voting system in america we have the highest turnout i don't know where these numbers that they float come from but i do know there's a vast difference between an allegation or a suspicion and a conviction mike freeman could not find in his survey of all the problems they had in hennepin county could not find one case of voter impersonation the people to my right have not been able all night to come up with one single case but yet they say that somehow minnesota is fraught with election fraud if it is it certainly has escaped my attention and for four years that escaped the attention american fire as secretary of state because she never brought a bill in to put an end to this system either and in two thousand and ten when the felony subject was up and that's the subject that they keep criticizing when that subject came up she voted no on the bill and i'm comfortable with that i can understand that but why didn't she bring in iran bill why didn't she amend the bill why didn't she and the governor work together and figure out how they could improve this problem why didn't they create a bipartisan commission and look into these terrible things that they're telling us existed they didn't just start yesterday they must have been going on before but in the two thousand and eight election when every single ballot was counted the republican attorneys said there was no fraud we couldn't find any in two thousand and ten when we had a close gubernatorial election the republican candidate went through ballot after ballot after ballot and finally gave up and said i can find any now somehow they found a lot but even  that were true then you should have a study find out how serious the problem is and what is the proper remedy and what is the cost the remedy they have come up with is for an illness that we do not have it's about voter impersonate if they want to deal with the problem of felons improperly voting that's a separate subject voter in person ation and having a photo of voter i will not put an end to that problem the burden has to be when you amend the constitution to recognize that that may be in there for a very very long time you can't just flippantly undo it at the next legislative session you can't say what if we made a mistake the first elections in twenty thirteen will be in minneapolis there is no way whatsoever that this amendment if passed could be implemented in time for that election and that means they'll have to go to the supreme court and somehow get relief the ultimate solution is going to be one think about this have democrats and republicans been able to resolve a budget difference without special session do you honestly think that dayton and mary kept my are going to agree in the next session i'm voter i and do it by july which is when this gets and acted it is going to be extraordinarily expensive and even if agreed upon it's going to court and you and i are going to pay the bill but again i thank you very much for your participation and i sincerely thank all of the panelists very much appreciate this evening i'd like to ask i'd like to ask the speakers if they can stick around for a few minutes a number of media people have asked if they could have some time with you after the debate tonight i would like to thank all of our speakers for their spirited participation in the forum tonight thanks to the city of maplewood staff and all the commissioners of the may put in roseville human rights commissions for helping to sponsor this event and i would like to say to all of those who attended the forum this evening that we really appreciate your respect full participation we hope that we will see you at the marriage amendment forum two weeks from tonight at the may put community center thank you and good night