Letter to the Editor

In response to the April 9 editorial, “Voter ID bill still a bad idea,” I must disagree.

Voting is a right, but it’s a qualified right. In Minnesota, a voter must be a resident of the state, a citizen, at least 18 years of age and must live in the precinct. A voter can’t be a convicted felon whose rights have not yet been restored and can’t be under a guardianship in which the right to vote has been revoked by the court. In addition, each eligible voter is entitled to only one ballot in an election.

The voter ID system proposed for Minnesota simply verifies that a voter meets the constitutional qualifications for voting.

Minnesota now leads the nation in convictions for voter fraud with 200 recent convictions of ineligible voters.

Minnesota’s Statewide Voter Registration System contains thousands of challenged entries due to undeliverable official election mail called postal verification cards. More than 6,000 Election Day registrants provided names or addresses that could not be verified after their ballots were accepted and counted in the 2008 election.

Many citizens have given up on the process because they have lost faith in the process. My preference would be a law passed by the Legislature, however the Governor had promised to veto any bill presented.

This will make it more difficult to corrupt the election process.

Charles Mills,

Austin