Bob CollinsIn the wake of the Franken-Coleman mess, what changes would you recommend to Minnesota’s election law?
Here’s one:
“My feeling personally, and I think a lot of people share this opinion, that if it would greatly improve the quality of our election judges if the persons who are so interested in making sure things are going correctly in the precinct actually serve as an election judge, rather than challengers.”
That’s Minneapolis Elections Director Cindy Reichert, who told legislators yesterday that additional restrictions, on behavior of challengers, might be needed.
MPR’s Tim Nelson reports that early voting and automatic registration might lighten the workload for election judges, and put more attention on the more time-consuming parts of the process, like absentee voting.
But in the spotlight of the recount, a significant problem — at least anecdotally — has gone unnoticed and unaddressed: people were improperly denied the opportunity to vote. On Election Day, we had quite a few stories from people who had voted before in a precinct, and went to vote on Election Day, only to find out they weren’t registered. What happened to them? Why did they disappear?
MPR’s Mike Mulcahy hosts Midday today and will tackle the topic at 11 a.m.
