Monday, September 17, 2012

Previously nonexistant and presently unnecessary levels of bureaucracy will be thrust upon us if the "why in the world add this extra stuff and cost" Amendment passes.

Say you are Mr. Limmer, a legislator. A man of unimpeachable integrity, as a voting record, say on the Howe Amendment, shows. Yes, sure, say you are for shrinking costs of delivery of government services. Mr. Limmer has said that, you know, going so far as wanting to more than decimate the state's workforce.

Sure, then say you are for having a voter ID.

Then say you don't see any of that being at all contradictory despite talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Previously nonexistant levels of bureaucracy will be thrust upon us, have no doubt.

The Bluestem Prairie site has looked at media analysis.

Sure, Mr. Limmer, you are doubtful about the city media, the Red Star, all that stuff you've said for years.

However, this is small town opinion from all over the state, and the links are there at Bluestem Prairie, so see for yourself.

And how do those agreeing with Mr. Limmer defend their will toward bureaucratic requirements and added costs of expansions of bureaucracy at every level of government in the state down to the local ballot box?

Try this.

The "we don't know the added cost" stuff ignores the basic truth, you add bureaucracy, you add cost, and how in the world can you say you oppose either more bureaucracy and adding to government cost, if you say this is a needed step to prevent nonexistant voter fraud - becuase as a hypothetical it might happen.

One voter fraud, a violation of federal law, is buying votes. If you require voter ID, it makes the vote buyer more comfortable - being able to check out a voter ID in advance of the person going to the poll to stuff the ballot box, and to not have to pay one who would be rejected or sent to the provisional ballot line in voting.

So, what voter fraud is being contested - none, but rather the target is same day registration, which is an aim not to protect the integrity of voting but for the opposite, to disenfranchise persons wholly entitled to be voting as citizens of the state, the local venue, and the nation. Why disenfranchise those who might want to vote for the first time - well Republicans don't want those who'd vote Democratic to vote, and while that's an understandable tactic to bias an election, it is hardly cause to tamper with something as endurable as the Minnesota Constitution, which Mr. Limmer has pledged to respect and uphold as part of his taking office.

Now, again, back to this. Now, if you feel unable to distinguish sophistry from reasoning, don't read further.

That item Gary Gross authored claims that the voter amendment Mr. Limmer supports is apart from the bill Mr. Limmer sponsored, (and that in the other house of the legislature Ms. Kiffmeyer and Ms. Franson sponsored, the companion bill to Mr. Limmer's) and that if this bureaucracy creating amendment passes, Mr. Limmer and his hench-persons (we cannot say henchmen) might even propose a different bill version than the one he, ALEC, and like-minded - make that similarly inclined - persons advocate. This is fantasy.

Leopards do not change spots. Because we were lucky enough to have Gov. Dayton to veto the Limmer-Kiffmeyer-Franson mischief, the same pack of ALEC affiliates decided that disrespect for the Constitution and its legacy is okay, if it means fewer Democratic votes - and ALEC is cheering them on. If you doubt, read this, this, this; and this from that bastion of local liberal elites, Hubbard County, where the point is not ALEC, but cost and disruption of a presently orderly and smooth way of holding elections in Minnesota.

The simple truth is ALEC and allies are participating in and advocating a coordinated nationwide hoax. The aim is to bias voting, not to protect it. And that aim is nefarious. Pure and simple. One person, one unimpeded vote; IS the American way, isn't it? So why paper that truism with bureaucracy and cost, but to have one party and its advocates rig elections against the other? Is THAT the American way? And if you cynically say "yes," then should it be? If you cannot win elections on the merits of your positions on issues, you do what - sling mud and try to rig the election? Well, Mr. Limmer, Ms. Kiffmeyer, and Ms. Franson, how would that earn you any respect? Or do you care? Is winning the ONLY thing? Capture of the spoils?

So, back to Bluestem Prairie. Read the analysis there and in the linked items. Think whether it makes sense, or whether you prefer the sophistic "argument" about if it passes we don't know what bill the people who have already written and proposed a bill would then write and propose.

If you want an unneeded complication thrust upon officials charged with conducting elections, then you can only want it if your wish is to disenfranchise voters more likely to vote Democratic. That is all this is about and the lying on the other side is obnoxious as well as unconvincing, and should stop.