When Governor Dayton vetoed the overwhelmingly popular 21st Century Voter ID bill last year, he also tried to create some political cover, albeit, thin. He created by executive order a “Task Force on Election Integrity,” mandated to make recommendations about how to improve Minnesota’s election system a few months after the 2012 general election.
The taskforce has been meeting semi-regularly since October of 2011 and today, they issued their First Interim Report and Initial Recommendation. In this first installment, the taskforce focused on voting by ineligible convicted felons and they made several recommendations.
Some of the taskforce’s initial suggestions are things that are already required by state laws, like cross-checking a Department of Corrections electronic database against the Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS) to flag ineligible felons for challenge. That’s been required since 2009 under Minnesota Statute 201.155. Since the secretary of state is the chair of the taskforce, and the chief elections officer responsible for doing these checks, he should be aware of that legal obligation.
The taskforce came up with a few good recommendations that are likely to be introduced as new legislation this year. Perhaps the governor will even sign them for a couple minor screw-tightening fixes in Minnesota’s loose to the point of falling apart election system. The good ideas include providing another written notice to convicted felons that they are not eligible to vote until they are done serving their sentence and another when their right to vote has been restored. Better still (but not part of the recommendation) would be obtaining a convicted felon’s signature on a document specifically stating they understand they are not to vote until they have been discharged from their sentence.
One whopper of a bad idea at the top of the taskforce’s recommendations is giving probationers the right to vote as long as they are not incarcerated. This is akin to determining that there are too many speeders on 35W and solving it by eliminating the speed limit.
Many convicted felons don’t actually serve jail time. Probation is the entirety of their punishment and depravation of rights, whether the right to freely move about, choose your associates, carry a firearm or to vote. Should we just do away with punishment for felony crimes all together?
Should candidates for county sheriff be out courting the felon vote?
Instead, let’s see if felons can demonstrate their rehabilitation by successful completion of their probation before welcoming them back into our civic process.
See the taskforce’s report here: http://www.sos.state.mn.us/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=11089
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