Voter ID opponents file lawsuit

Posted at 12:56 PM on May 30, 2012 by Tim Pugmire (1 Comments)
Filed under: Voter ID Amendment

Opponents of Minnesota's proposed voter identification requirement have filed a lawsuit to try to keep the constitutional amendment question off of the statewide ballot in November.

Representatives of The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, League of Women Voters Minnesota, Jewish Community Action and Common Cause Minnesota announced the legal challenge today in a downtown Minneapolis law office. They claim the ballot language that lawmakers passed several weeks ago is vague and misleading.

Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the ACLU Minnesota, said the proposed amendment would do far more than what the ballot question describes, such as create a new provisional ballot system.

"We believe that the voters of Minnesota have a right to know what they're voting on," he said. "And this petition is about ensuring that all Minnesota voters know the full extent of what this amendment could do and the impact it could have on hundreds of thousands of Minnesota voters."

Voter ID supporters criticized the lawsuit. In a news release, Minnesota Majority President Jeff Davis said the opponents claims are without merit.

"The opponents have been talking about a lawsuit from nearly the time that the voter ID bill was introduced in the legislature," Davis wrote. "What are these folks so afraid that they feel the need to file a lawsuit trying to block Minnesotans from voting on this issue?"

Comments (1)

If our right to vote is free to exercise, the why would we have to pay for an ID to exercise that right?

Posted by sam | May 30, 2012 11:06 PM

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