Why do DFLs/liberals in Minnesota hate Voter ID?

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2012/11/map_marriage_voterid/?refid=0

Doesn't make much sense to me.  It helps with election fraud, you can cast provisional ballots, and they even get free photo IDs?  Don't liberals love "free" stuff like welfare?  This should be right up their alley.

Maybe BRTD or someone else in MN can explain this one, to a former Minnesotan.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

cue BRTD!

[Lief 🗽]

Because it should be easier to vote, not harder.

[Speed of Sound]

Because it should be easier to vote, not harder.

Also, way to start it off a good discussion of an issue with your idiotic and incorrect insults.

[Vosem]

Because enacting voter ID laws would depress turnout, which helps Republicans to such an extent that going against overwhelming public opinion on this issue does not lose Democrats as many votes as enacting voter ID would.

In other words -- to minimize their losses.

[BaldEagle1991]

No, it's because it has the same effect as the old and ancient act of poll taxing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2012/11/map_marriage_voterid/?refid=0

Doesn't make much sense to me.  It helps with election fraud, you can cast provisional ballots, and they even get free photo IDs?  Don't liberals love "free" stuff like welfare?  This should be right up their alley.

Maybe BRTD or someone else in MN can explain this one, to a former Minnesotan.

First look at the map. It wasn't just the DFL and liberals against it.

Answers:

1-The whole thing could cost about $50 million to implement in a state that just managed to turn a surplus but isn't exactly overflowing with excess cash.
2-It would've effectively ended mail-in absentee voting and been a huge burden on military personnel and those in nursing homes.
3-"You can cast a provisional ballot" is oversimplifying it, more like you can wait in line for up to two hours on election day to register (we had lines that long on Tuesday) and then have to stop by a county office later to verify your vote. Is going to county offices like the DMV known as a pleasant experience?
4-The fact that it was an amendment meant easy changes could not be made in the future. This was basically the Republicans trying to use the amendment process to pass their bill around Dayton's veto rather than work with Dayton to pass a bill that would still kept the ease in voting in Minnesota, which Dayton offered to do.

Mark Ritchie wrote a great editorial explaining all the issues involved: http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2012/09/minnesota-voting-amendment-would-change-much-more-you-might-think

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

Ok, BTRD, I see the point now.  I guess it would make more sense as a law,  not an amendment. But it should have really easy access to get those IDs to vote, otherwise what's the point?  By really easy I mean something like a roaming van/stand that's able to make them on the spot.

Thanks for the link.

[Indy Texas]

Ok, BTRD, I see the point now.  I guess it would make more sense as a law,  not an amendment. But it should have really easy access to get those IDs to vote, otherwise what's the point?  By really easy I mean something like a roaming van/stand that's able to make them on the spot.

Thanks for the link.

The point is to make sure people who don't have time or transportation to get to a DMV for an ID won't be able to vote. The point is to make sure the kind of people who don't have driver licenses because they're too poor to own cars or live in inner cities and don't need them won't be able to vote. The point is to make sure that the most vulnerable people in society who have the fewest resources with which to participate in civil society will have yet another obstacle to doing so.

If you can't get a certain segment of the population to vote for you because your political platform is so repugnant to them, it's easier to just stop them from voting at all.

The most cynical Facebook posts I saw Wednesday and Thursday came from people who were sure a Republican would win in 2016 because "thankfully we'll have Voter ID then."

[muon2]

I can understand the cost issue and even the rationale that it should be a law rather than an amendment. But the voter suppression argument continues to puzzle me, and I can't find data that supports the claim. To the contrary, Canada does just fine with a voter ID law, and I don't hear stories about voter suppression because of it.

[Frodo]

They recognize it for the Trojan Horse that it is in GOP efforts to suppress Democratic votes. 

[Brittain33]

I can understand the cost issue and even the rationale that it should be a law rather than an amendment. But the voter suppression argument continues to puzzle me, and I can't find data that supports the claim. To the contrary, Canada does just fine with a voter ID law, and I don't hear stories about voter suppression because of it.

The legislators who have pushed for voter ID appear to believe that it will help with voter suppression. Mike Turzai, House Republican leader in Pennsylvania, explicitly said that it would help deliver the state's electoral vote to his candidate, Mitt Romney. It's clear that the only meaning for this was that it would discourage Democratic voters from exercising their right to vote because so many lacked a suitable state ID.

It may well be that you can construct a voter ID law with enough provisions to make it reasonably possible, if still inconvenient, for everyone who is legally registered to vote to comply. I don't know if the Minnesota law met these guidelines, but since Minnesota is more of a two-party state than others, it's likely. Yet such a law would still impose a new burden on many voters, and given the enthusiasm with which one party has pursued this legislation in ways that disenfranchise voters (cf. Georgia, which allowed for free IDs but did not issue them in Fulton County(!)) or Mike Turzai's telling quote, it's hard to expect Democratic voters to trust the intentions of the legislation.

The U.S. isn't Canada.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The suppression argument comes primarily from turning same day registration into only a provisional vote that one would have to verify later and making it far more difficult for people bedridden in nursing homes or overseas (including military personnel) to vote absentee.

It's worth noting that it was first passed as a bill and vetoed by Dayton expressing these concerns. Dayton offered to look at alternative and far cheaper anti-fraud measures like electronic verification. The GOP simply ignored them and put it on the ballot via the amendment process. Hard not to be skeptical of them in that situation.