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Call-In Show
Voter ID Cards, DFL endorsements and Speaking Against a Cell Phone Battery; a Night of Firsts with Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer
For the first time at Senate District 41's full committee dinner, a speaker found that they were not contending with the clock but with potential low cell phone battery. As the result of a scheduling conflict, Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer found herself addressing a crowd of Edina and West Bloomington GOP activists via phone. And much of what Kiffmeyer said was as original as the manner in which she was saying it.
Receiving endorsements from one’s primary opponent is certainly a common occurrence in politics. Receiving a primary contender’s endorsement from the other party isn’t. DFL Secretary of State candidate Dick Franson endorsed Kiffmeyer’s bid for re-election, joining her campaign team while hoping to bring the roughly 76,000 Democrats who voted for him along as well this November. Part of Franson’s decision may have to do with the DFL nominee’s endorsements by the national and local branches of the Communist Party.
Despite their nominee seeing red, national Democrats apparently are turning blue over the thought of Kiffmeyer managing Minnesota’s presidential election in 2008. National soft-money groups, so-called “527's” for their campaign finance designation, are targeting Kiffmeyer’s race in an attempt to, in Kiffmeyer’s words, “mess around with elections.”
But the former president of the National Association of Secretaries of State is bound and determined to leave an electoral system more resistant to fraud than the one she inherited. Stating she’ll work “tirelessly” for some form of voter ID card, Kiffmeyer touted her work with Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell in trying to pass legislation to need some proof of citizenship in order to vote. While Minnesota may be “chad-free” and many Democrats complain about her office’s focus on preventing voter fraud, the system of loopholes within same-day registration that make it open to voter fraud have to be addressed. Kiffmeyer deflected DFL criticism that Minnesota lacks voter fraud by comparing it to shoplifting. Just because it isn’t always visible doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Kiffmeyer also reminded her audience that there have been several prosecuted cases of voter fraud in the state and numerous reports of college students voting multiple times.
Although most questions regarded the Secretary of State’s role in elections, Kiffmeyer also focused on her office’s successes in streamlining business filings and general service - accomplished not merely without adding staff but actually subtracting some. The Secretary of State’s office was at 90 in 1998 and now is down to around 70.
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