Last week, the election’s omnibus bill moved out of committee. I have serious concerns with this bill and how it will affect election integrity in our state. I believe the legislature should work to uphold election integrity and bring back trust in our election system. However, this omnibus bill will continue to sow seeds of distrust in our electoral system. Notably, this includes expanding absentee voting laws to include temporary absentee ballot locations on college campuses. While I value the participation of all eligible voters, this expansion is unnecessary and expensive. Absentee ballots are already available to all college students eligible to vote. Under the surface, this bill is intended to maximize the voters of a certain demographic, a move that raises concerns over potential electioneering efforts. Moreover, this bill unfairly mandates that upon a university’s request, counties would be required to fund the implementation of unnecessary, costly short term ballot locations.
Furthermore, the elections omnibus bill removes the requirement to provide a physical address for voting registration, and adds an option for a ‘physical description’ of voter residency. While this addition was intended to better include the homeless population, I fear that this loophole will be taken advantage of. Under the guise of inclusion, the elimination of a physical address requirement for voter registration presents a new vulnerability to our system. This will increase the likelihood of voting fraud, and will undermine the trust Minnesotans have in our voting system.
While democrats have searched to find new ways to use taxpayer dollars to solve problems that don’t exist, I have sought ways to reduce expenses and save taxpayer dollars within our voting system. One way I did this was to offer an amendment that would require all elections- with few exceptions- including township, school board, and city elections to take place on even years instead of odd years. This would force all elections to coincide with the general election. This measure will offer consistency, better turn out, and reduce the cost for these elections. While this amendment initially had bipartisan support, it was voted down in committee as it was not consistent with the democrat leadership’s prerogative agenda.
The democrat’s agenda, displayed by this omnibus bill, does nothing to accomplish bringing back integrity, legitimacy, and trust to our electoral system. Instead, the democrats have chosen to legislate new and often expensive vulnerabilities into the voting process. Minnesotan's belief in the integrity of our elections is vital to a thriving republic. We must roll back these changes.
