Letter: Voter ID amendment is bad 'blank check'

To the Editor:

When the Legislature proposed a constitutional amendment to require an ID to vote in Minnesota – my first thought was “great” – obviously a good thing to do.

After reading more about the pros and cons and especially the actual wording – I began to think differently for four reasons:

a) The type of voter fraud seen in Minnesota – felons who have lost the right to vote, voting – could still easily occur;

b) A provisional ballot for new, unregistered voters would require extra work and would effectively discourage young people and others from participating;

c) Even with the lower estimates, there will be significant costs to implement a whole new system and no level of government has funds to spare – the result – higher taxes;

d) And most importantly, the ballot question does not include details – this will be at the discretion of the next Legislature, or the courts.

A constitutional amendment is a very serious step that should be fully spelled out to voters in advance of a decision.

This proposal may be a solution in search of a problem. Even if the need is there, a well thought-out plan passed through our Legislature and signed by the governor would serve the same purpose – 32 other states have done that.

The idea of approving a “blank check” in our Constitution with details to be devised later is enough that I plan to vote “no” on the voter amendment and encourage you to consider doing the same.

Thomas Steger

Zumbrota

Tags: opinion, letters