Commentary: Keep Minnesota #1 in Elections By Mark Ritchie

Minnesotans traditionally make our great state number one in the nation when it comes to voter turnout. Yet last year alone, one million eligible Minnesotans did not make it to the polls. How do we take a great state and make it even better? Here are a few ideas the Secretary of State’s Office has proposed to the legislature.

First of all, make it easier for military and overseas voters.

Currently, many of our soldiers and other voters living overseas do not have enough time to vote by absentee ballot through the regular mail process. As a result, many of our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan are unable to vote. After a series of meetings with key leaders in the Minnesota National Guard and the 88th Ready Reserve, we have developed the Uniformed and Overseas Voter Assistance Act now winding its way through the Minnesota legislature. The bill would allow additional time for military and overseas voters by extending them the opportunity to use e-mail and the Internet, making it easier to register and making it faster to receive their ballots. Our overall goal is to offer a realistic opportunity for our military and overseas voters to vote in each and every election.

Second, we need to modernize our voter registration procedures. Most of us currently register to vote by standing in line at a local government office, or we register at the polling place on Election Day. However, what if you were able to go to a website to update your registration online like citizens do in Arizona? Imagine knowing that, each time you applied for a drivers’ license, your voter registration was automatically filed or updated, unless you declined this service. What if your voter registration were updated when you filed a change-of-address form with the US Postal Service? Each of these innovations would save money for local governments while providing simple conveniences to our increasingly busy lives.

Some might argue that by making these improvements to our voter registration procedures, we increase the incidence of voter fraud. I disagree. In fact, I believe our proposals for making voter registration more automatic will make our elections more secure. For example, we have over 500,000 people registering on Election Day (in 2004);  if some of these folks were registered before the election, either over the Internet or when they got their drivers’ licenses, poll workers would have more time to work with new voters and to make sure others were eligible and voting in the right place. Voting lines would also move faster—a benefit to all voters.

New Minnesota drivers’ license applicants are currently required to show proof of citizenship status and age. With this information, our office can review all new registrations to make sure that everyone applying is an eligible citizen. We would follow up each application with a non-forwardable postcard that would help us determine if there were any mistakes in the system.

Another concern expressed by some is that they do not want to be registered to vote under any circumstance. I agree that it is the right of every citizen to not participate. This is absolutely protected in our proposal, where citizens are twice given an opportunity to indicate if they do not want to be registered—once at the time of the license application, and once on a follow-up mailing sent to the drivers’ license recipient. Our proposal does not require anyone to vote—it will simply make it easier for citizens to exercise the right to vote if they so choose.

One other place where we can improve our system is by making it easier for poll workers to determine whether college students meet eligibility requirements to vote legally in Minnesota. Colleges and universities have addressed this issue by providing poll workers at election sites near college campuses with lists of students who live on campus and are certified by their academic institution as eligible residents. This saves poll workers a great deal of time and hassle, enabling them to focus more of their attention on making sure other voters are properly registered, voting in the right place, and legally eligible. This system also saves busy students time in their polling places and helps everyone by keeping lines shorter on Election Day. We are working with colleges to improve this system and to extend it to students living in off-campus student housing.

These are only a few of our ideas for ways that we can save taxpayers time and money while making our elections more efficient and secure. My obligation to the voters is to make the election system work for all of us.

Mark Ritchie is Minnesota’s 21st Secretary of State.