Eight years ago, Minnesota Republicans pushed to require voter ID in the state's elections. They plan to take up the issue again this year.
"It's a bill I will be writing in the next two or three weeks," said Sen. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson. "In a nutshell, what I will wind up doing is taking the bill that I wrote in 2012 that was for a constitutional amendment. I will turn it into a bill for a statutory revision."
In 2012, voters were asked whether voter ID should be required as part of a constitutional amendment. The measure was rejected by a margin of 52 to 46 percent. Newman said that even though the amendment was rejected by voters, the new push isn't a rehash.
"Eight years have passed," he said. "We have new legislators in place ... a different governor. And the bill in 2012 was for a constitutional amendment. To me that is a completely different issue than a bill for a statutory change. The constitutional amendment was rejected by voters, I get that. But it was on the ballot at the same time as a very controversial bill regarding same sex marriage. A little speculation on my part, but perhaps both constitutional amendments were rejected because there was some spill over from the controversial marriage bill."
Republicans controlled the House and Senate in 2012, which allowed them to place the item on the ballot without needing then Gov. Mark Dayton's signature. Now Democrats control the House, and Democrat Gov. Tim Walz's signature will be needed as well.
Republicans say voter photo ID will help protect from fraud.
"Anything you do in your life of any importance at all requires an ID," Newman said. "I don't think this is outlandish at all. It's another tool we can use to protect our election system."
One group is suing the state to gain access to voter information it believes can prove inactive voters — such as those unable to vote because they are felons or deceased — cast ballots. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon says the information is private, protected data. On Wednesday afternoon he said he couldn't comment on the pending case.
"I trust our law enforcement," he said. "They have to follow up on any unresolved claim (of voter fraud). If an election official can't tell if someone did or didn't vote illegally, they have to follow up."
He added that law enforcement are allowed no discretion on the matter, and must follow up. The most recent data he reviewed, Simon said, showed 18 cases of voter fraud out of 5.5 million residents.
"Any number more than zero is a bad thing," he said. "But we've got limited resources and I want to focus our resources where the real threat is."
He said that compared to the threat of an outside adversary tampering with the election process, voter fraud was an "unhelpful distraction."
"Everything changed after 2016, everything nationally," Simon said. "Not just me, but also my colleagues in the other 49 states."
The Department of Homeland Security listed Minnesota as among 21 states to have election systems targeted by hackers in 2016.
"For me and my colleagues, job No. 1 is that. That's the threat," Simon said.
He urges the Legislature to authorize his office to use a second round of federal dollars offered to aid in election security. He said Minnesota's Legislature was the last to provide authorization in a previous round of funding.
Democrats say voter fraud is a myth propagated to enact voter suppression measures, as acquiring an ID is harder for the poor, for minorities, the elderly and disabled. They say the system is protected by election judges at polling stations and when early ballots are submitted.
“We know that voter fraud is such a rare occurrence,” Walz said. “This is a solution looking for a problem that’s not there, simply to make it more difficult (to vote).”
Newman said his bill would not leave behind those without an ID.
"In the bill in 2012, it included a provision that if folks didn't have the necessary identification, the state would provide it for them at no charge," he said. "This bill will have the same kind of provision."
Newman said he is curious to see if public reception differs now from how it did eight years ago.
"It's an issue I have always been interested in. Obviously I heavily supported it in 2012," he said. "Now in 2020, we're going at it a different way, statutory instead of with a constitutional amendment. I have a hunch the public will weigh in on this pretty heavily."
