True North

Whether it’s a Minnesota lawmaker’s effort to ban photo IDs at the voting booth or a columnist’s claim that eight of the 9/11 hijackers were registered voters, voting rights and registration rules continue to draw headlines nationwide.

While I don’t want to limit access, given recent immigration problems I do have serious concerns about government’s ability to make sure people casting votes are legal citizens.

For example, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund recently claimed that the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers of 9/11 were registered to vote in the United States. (The Justice Department has not addressed his statement, nor has Fund provided a specific source.) Fund, in a Nov. 2 column, claimed that the Motor Voter Act gave these immigrants a voter registration card when they took a driver’s license test in their states.

Closer to home, St. Cloud resident Gary Gross recently wrote on these pages about Rep. Keith Ellison’s bill making the showing of identification unnecessary for one to vote. The Minneapolis lawmaker introduced legislation to ban the use of photo IDs as a requirement to vote in federal elections, stating that it “is a sacred right and a moral obligation to vote.”

Each state has its own laws regarding voting and there’s a wide variety of rules. Minnesota offers same-day registration for voters.

Minnesota had the highest voter turnout of any state for the 2004 federal elections at 78 percent. That compared to 55 percent in the rest of the nation, according to Ellison.

But that number is misleading because of same-day registration. So, for example, Anoka County had 170,686 registered voters as of 7 a.m. that day, but 174,066 voted. Statewide, 592,421 registered and voted that same day in 2004. This was almost 21 percent of those who voted.

Of course, same-day registration is convenient. You may register to vote at your polling place with your current address on a utility bill and a driver’s license. Even though you are asked if you are a U.S. citizen, there is little to be done on Election Day if one answers “yes” untruthfully. Even lacking any of one’s identification, the oath of a registered voter in a precinct is sufficient to permit you to vote.

There really is no way — particularly on Election Day — to inquire about citizenship.

And other problems might arise. A college student has the potential to vote twice, by absentee ballot at their parents’ home and by same-day voting at their college campus.I spoke with Ellison this week and asked what constituted a legal vote. He said this was not the issue he was raising. He was not concerned about voter fraud but about voter access. Voter fraud, he said, was very rare.

However, there have been contested elections in which investigations found people improperly registered to vote.In 1996, more than 740 noncitizens voted in a controversial California congressional race. Similarly, in 2005 the Utah legislative auditor said more than 58,000 illegal immigrants had Utah driver’s licenses and that almost 400 of them used their licenses to register to vote.Still, Ellison contends a photo ID is unconstitutional, even if it was free. The elderly in nursing homes, people of color, low-income families and students would not vote if photo IDs were required.“It would roll the wheels of time backward so only certain people can vote,” he said.

But what is wrong with that?

One has a moral obligation to vote in a place where one is a citizen. Not everyone living in a voting district is a citizen. Citizenship is a right conferred by birth, by parentage and by conscious choice. That choice can involve either moving to a new precinct in the same country, or by application and achievement of citizenship in a new country.

Ellison was adamant in saying only citizens should be allowed to vote, but he felt the voting laws of Minnesota were a model for the country.The question is whether voting is a sacred right or a moral obligation to everyone, or only to those who are citizens? And if that right and obligation is limited, to whom is it restricted?

A country that cannot define who its citizens are ceases to be a country.

It is something less, a land with no identity.

I wonder whether the voice of the people, the root of democratic and representative government, is improved by easier rules for voting.This is the opinion of Barbara Banaian, a professional pianist who lives in the St. Cloud area. Her column is published the first Friday of the month.

Cross-posted at St. Cloud Times OnLine