Remember Minnesota Majority? Sure you do! They’re the Republican group that has decided that the best way to ensure fairness at the polling place is to harass and intimidate voters follow voters around with cameras, demanding they prove they have the right to vote. You know, because that’s integrity.
As part of their plan, Minnesota Majority filed suit to get around Minnesota law, which prevents voters from wearing campaign swag in polling places. They hoped to be able to wear tea party shirts and “Please ID Me” buttons, showing that they’re willing to have their driver’s license checked before voting, despite the fact that it isn’t required by state law.
Now, I’m one of those guys who’s a radical free-speech advocate, to the point where I will defend even the Phelps clan’s right to be idiots. But the reason for keeping polling places campaign-lit free is obvious — it allows people to make that final decision free of coercion, free of distraction, and free of campaign interference. It keeps campaigns from engaging in simple corruption — after all, it’s harder to get your $5 for voting Joe Bagadonitz if the Bagadonitz campaign worker isn’t in evidence. In short, it keeps the polling place a place for voting, and only voting. The whole rest of the world is reserved for campaigning. It’s a classic time-manner-place restriction on free speech, and in my opinion, a welcome one, even if it means I have to yank my Mark Dayton button off when walking in.
Anyhoo, Minnesota Majority sued to get a temporary restraining order in Hennepin and Ramsey counties allowing them to wear their “ID Me, And By ‘Me,’ I Mean ‘Brown People'” buttons. (I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Hennepin and Ramsey counties are the two most ethnically diverse and heavily DFL counties in Minnesota.) And U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen — a George W. Bush appointee — said no:
People wearing Tea Party T-shirts and buttons that say “Please I.D. Me” can be told to cover up in Minnesota polling places Tuesday.
A federal judge Monday refused to grant Minnesota Majority a temporary restraining order that would have barred election judges from restricting those items.U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen rejected the Minnesota Majority’s request for the restraining order after a three-hour hearing Monday.
Needless to say, Minnesota Majority is taking this ruling in stride, instructing their members that they should follow the judge’s ruling, show respect for the rule of law, and that they’ll continue to pursue this important case after the election.
Kidding! No, they’re urging their supporters to break the law:
For now, we are recommending that you proceed with wearing your Election Integrity buttons or Tea Party apparel to the polls, knowing you are within your rights, but don’t allow yourself to be disenfranchised. If you are challenged by an election judge because of what you are wearing, you’ll have a decision to make. You can simply remove or cover the challenged item and you’ll be allowed to vote, or you can refuse and demand your right to vote and the election judge will allow you to vote, while also recording your name and you could be charged with a petty misdemeanor.
Why on earth would you pick this fight? Because, silly, this has nothing to do with the “right” to campaign at a polling place, and everything to do with voter intimidation. Everything to do with reminding poor and minority voters that their votes aren’t welcome, that they don’t count as much as the votes of rich white people. Everything to do with preventing enough people from voting that Tom Emmer can eke out a win, or, barring that, to allow Republicans to claim that Mark Dayton isn’t a legitimate governor because he got “questionable” votes (something they’ve been doing with relish regarding Al Franken).
Indeed, they don’t even have to prevent people from voting directly. If they can create chaos in the right districts, that works too — make the poll workers tell every fourth person that they have to take their buttons off, argue about it, make the lines stretch, make the time crawl, make it tough on people trying to vote on their break between jobs. If it takes a few arrests to do it, so be it — a petty misdemeanor is a small price to pay if it keeps some DFLers from voting.
Tomorrow should be a good day for Republicans nationwide. I can read polls; it isn’t going to be pretty for the Democrats, and that’s too damn bad. But here in Minnesota, there’s a chance that it could be a very good day for Democrats indeed. If Dayton wins and the DFL holds the House and Senate, as I expect, the state government would be fully under DFL control for the first time since 1991.
Tom Emmer is not going to close the gap on his own — he’s had months, and it ain’t happening. So the alternative is to steal the election, in the name of electoral fairness. But it’s okay. It’s just minority voters the Republicans look to intimidate. The founding fathers didn’t want them voting anyhow.
