On Election Law & Voting Rights

RANKED CHOICE VOTING WOULD IMPROVE GOVERNMENT. STAR TRIBUNE, MAY 26TH, 2024

"RCV would reduce the spectacle"

Mark Johnson, the Republican minority leader of the Minnesota Senate, is half-correct ("Consider the spectacle of the 2024 legislative session," Opinion Exchange, May 23). The Democratic Party has a far-left-wing faction, which sometimes frustrates voters, including more left-center DFLers. Yet, in his bid to encourage citizens to vote for the Republican Party ticket, Johnson is silent about the fact that the Republican Party has a far right-wing faction that also frustrates voters, including more centrist-minded Republicans. I suspect that most Minnesota voters are a part of the sensible, independent-minded political center, and they, too, should have a government that works for them.

The problem is not whether we hold caucuses or primaries to nominate major party candidates, nor should we erect needless harsh legal barriers for independent and minor party candidates. The problem is that you do not need support from the majority of voters to win an election. The solution? Ranked-choice voting.

Adopting ranked-choice voting would require the winner to have the support of the majority as opposed to the mere plurality of votes cast. It would reduce, if not eliminate, the potential for alternative parties or candidates to spoil the election, and it tends to lead to more positive campaigns because candidates cannot just appeal to their far right-wing or far left-wing base.

In the 2024 Minnesota legislative session, a modest bill to allow local units of government to adopt ranked-choice voting almost passed, but a few Democrats and a large segment of Republicans voted against the bill. While I would have preferred switching to ranked-choice voting in all elections, I appreciate the importance of gradual reform, starting at the local level with cities being given the option to exercise some local control.

If Johnson is serious about giving all Minnesotans the government that they deserve, he should back ranked-choice voting, starting at the local level, and encourage his Republican colleagues to vote in favor of the reform at the next legislative session.

Many Republicans and Democrats alike are tired of a government that only caters to the narrow ideological extremes. They want majority rule, they want more positive and inclusive campaigns, and they also want a greater level of choice and debate without worrying about electoral spoilage.

In terms of what sort of government Minnesotans deserve, let's help to make it one that works for the majority of Minnesotans who are tired of the narrow, ideological extremists on both sides of the aisle dominating the debate.

ATTACK ON LEGAL MARIJUANA NOW PARTY IS A LITTLE TOO CONVIENT. STAR TRIBUNE. 2024.

THE RIGHT TO VOTE IS PROTECTED BY THE FIRST AMENDMENT. PUBLISHED IN THE FARGO FORUM

NEWSPAPER IN OCTOBER, 2018.

It is most peculiar that the proponents of "original intent" jurisprudence seem to have such poor record with regards to voting rights. If we were serious about the original intent of the Founding Fathers, then we ought to rethink some of our assumptions about voting rights in America.

History suggests that one of the main intentions behind the First Amendment was to protect political liberty. In the days before modern communications, everything from the act of voting, to the act of supporting a political cause, involved the exercise of speech, press, petitioning and peaceful assembly.

Voting was a public declaration that operated without government printed ballots.

When political parties formed they were given the task of printing up their own paper ballots to distribute to citizens at the polls.

Many different parties competed for votes in a marketplace of ideas that would make Adam Smith giddy. By the time that government printed ballots became widespread, the Founding Fathers were all dead and buried.

In light of this history, why don't most "originalist" view voting and candidacy as activities protected by the First Amendment?

Instead, we see originalists disenfranchising Native American voters and upholding regulations that exclude serious minor parties from the government-printed ballot.

Supporters of original intent jurisprudence tend to believe that, "money equals speech," but when it comes to voting or, suddenly the jurisprudence struggles find an equally strong First Amendment connection.

Keep Participating in the American political process and it will gradually respond to you. Echo Press. Nov 22nd, 2022.

It's never a waste of time to vote or, for that matter, run for elected office. Even if you or your preferred candidates do not win, you are still exercising the political liberties needed to help form a more perfect union.

The Declaration of Independence is a radical press release to all men and women of every culture, background and belief. It says, without apologies, that all of mankind is created equal and entitled to certain human rights — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It leaves it up to us to fill in the details through the exercise of political liberty.

These liberties are the freedom of speech, press, petitioning and assembly as well as the freedom to vote and be voted for. Each generation has a responsibility to learn about our nation's history, to see what it has done right, what it needs to work on, and use the exercise of political liberty to change undesirable or unjust attitudes and laws.

The injustice can be directed at a particular group of people seeking their human rights, such as discrimination on the account of race, color, class, creed, ethnicity, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation.

Sometimes the injustice lies within how we choose to conduct elections. Both major political parties have attempted, sometimes succeeded, to exclude citizens or candidates from the process because they dislike how certain citizens would likely vote or they disliked the ideas being promoted by the new or minor political party.

This doesn't mean that people should just give up or resort to political violence. Apathy doesn't change undesirable legislation and political violence is unacceptable in a nation with a strong First Amendment.

The solution is to keep participating in the political process and keep exercising those political liberties and if you're orderly and consistent about your participation, the system does gradually respond to you.

IF YOU WANT MORE MEAINGFUL CHOICES THEN GET TO WORK ON ELECTION LAW REFORM

Fargo Forum Newspaper. July 27th, 2022.

Do we really deserve better than the lesser of the two evils? Yes, if, and this is a big “if,” we are ready to do the election law reform work that is required in order to have more meaningful choices for voters. How many candidate choices exist is largely the product of specific campaign laws, which we, the people, are free to change.

Ballot access rules are those rules that govern how an Independent or a third-political party candidate gets listed on a secret ballot. Some level of regulation is required in order to avoid chaos and to produce a user-friendly ballot.

If the people are serious about having more choices, then the first step is to review these ballot access rules in order to ensure that they are not making things unnecessarily complicated and expensive for a citizen to run for elected office outside of the two traditional political parties.

Once Independent and third-political party candidates have reasonable access to the ballot, the next major campaign law reform issue is determining what sort of voting method the people want to adopt for their elections.

If we want to maintain a system where two, big parties win most, but not all, legislative elections then we probably should consider adopting Ranked Choice Voting. It would ensure that the winner is the preferred choice of a majority of voters and would avoid the “spoiler” problem that can arise with non-major party candidates.

If we want the legislature to be represented by more than two parties, we should probably consider adopting some form of proportional representation. This could be set up so that some smaller parties win legislative seats, without leading to the situation in say, Italy where there very well might be more parties than Italian voters.

So, these are the campaign law reform issues that we – the people – need to have a serious conversation about, if, again, big “if,” we want meaningful choices outside of the Republican and Democratic Parties.

Campaign law reform is not particularly sexy and, to be successful, it does require dedicated people, from across the partisan spectrum, to build a movement that incumbent legislators, no matter their party, cannot ignore.

Lest we forget, that the Founding Fathers did not have secret ballots, primary elections, near-universal adult suffrage, and direct election of United States senators. Each of these reforms came about because men and women believed that a more perfect union requires competitive, free and fair elections.

Echo Press. May 28th, 2022. I want to know more about the three candidates running in the MN 7th Congressional District.

As an undecided voter, I look forward to hearing what the Minnesota Seventh Congressional District candidates have to say about public policy concerns. I ask that print and broadcast media aid me in my political decision-making process by providing in-depth coverage of all of the candidates.

It is still early in the campaign season, but from what I gather from social media there are three main candidates seeking the Congressional seat; incumbent Michelle Fischbach (Republican), Jill Abahsain (DFL) and an Independent candidate by the name of Travis “Bull Johnson.

Any one of these candidates could earn my vote, but I do not want to make political decisions simply based on what I manage to find on social media.

This is where the local media comes into the equation and it is a big reason why we need to support our local broadcasting and print media outlets. National and Twin Cities-based media is not going to provide much coverage of the western Minnesota Congressional race, which means that it falls upon our local media to provide us with in-depth election coverage.

I want to know more about these candidates’ background, their opinions and views on current events and what they plan on doing with themselves should they win the seat. I want to see these three candidates in debates and if they happen to come to my local neck of the woods, I would certainly like to hear them speak.

A healthy democracy requires electoral competition, just as much as it requires a free press. support my local media outlets and look forward to seeing the campaign season through the lens of broadcast and print news.

(MY REBUTALL TO COMMENTS MADE BY ROB PORT). FARGO FORUM NEWSPAPER. JUNE 10TH, 2021.

I enjoy reading Rob Port's opinions, even when I disagree with them. I must respectfully dissent from his take on voting rights . Gerrymandering and harsh ballot access rules are two examples of incumbents attempting to erode the healthy competition that should be the hallmark of regular, free, and fair elections.

Yes, gerrymandering is wrong no matter the political affiliation of the incumbent legislators. It is wrong when North Dakota Republicans attempt to gerrymander themselves into a majority and it would be equally wrong if North Dakota Democrats attempted to do the same thing.

Yes, it is entirely possible that most North Dakota voters are, as electoral consumers, not "buying" what the Democratic Party is selling.

Yet the issue is not the parties, but rather the people. The people should be the ones to select their own representatives, not incumbent legislators.

To continue the analogy of elections as markets, we would not allow the government to gerrymander a business out of the free market.

The success of a political party or a particular candidate should be determined by the people in the free marketplace of ideas, just as the success of a business should primarily be decided by the consumers in the free-market system.

Whereas gerrymandering involves incumbents picking their people, the often-Byzantine set of regulations facing political minorities involve incumbents artificially raising the cost of a class of candidates from entering the electoral marketplace of ideas.

Frequently, this often involves Republicans targeting the Libertarian Party candidates, while the Green Party often draws the fury of Democrats.

Gerrymandering and harsh ballot access laws undermine the electoral free marketplace by diluting the right of voters to make political choices and the right of political parties to sell their ideas to the people.

Simply put, incumbent lawmakers have an incentive to discourage competition through gerrymandering and harsh ballot access laws.

Some people, such as Rob Port, seem to believe that these "discouragements" are OK because they are done by the incumbents. That the Republican Party, in the case of North Dakota, is entitled to undermine the right of the people to vote effectively. I must respectfully disagree.

LACK OF COMPETITITION IS TOO COMMON IN ELECTIONS. ECHO PRESS. 2022. JAN 28TH.

I would agree that our “electoral system is better than many think.” (In the Know column, Jan. 26 Echo Press.) A more common problem is the frequency of little-to-no competition in elections. We often see this with gerrymandering districts and the high cost of running for elected office.

Republicans and Democrats alike have tried to craft legislative and Congressional districts so as to make elections less competitive. Naturally, incumbents want to win reelection and thus districts are created to be “safe.”

In the 2004 Congressional election, only a handful of races were competitive – 172 of these races were either uncontested or clearly designed as a safe seat.

Yet, gerrymandering is only part of the problem. U.S. Senate seats are elected and the odds of reelection for an incumbent senator hasn’t been lower than 75% percent since 1980. Something else is going on.

The high cost of running for public office is an important reason for the loss of electoral competition. This is expressed through regulations involving campaign finance and ballot access.

Most of the time the candidate that outspends an opponent wins, and thus non-wealthy citizens have a strong disincentive to run for office. This is sometimes referred to as the “wealth primary.”

Last, but not least, we have ballot access regulations. These are the rules that incumbents make to determine which major and minor political party candidates get listed on the election ballot.

Candidates often are required to pay high filing fees and complete expensive petitioning drives in order to be listed on the secret ballot.

The solutions are fairly straightforward; an Independent commission can draw legislative districts. Public funding for campaigns can make it more viable for the non-wealthy and ballot access laws can be simplified.

None of these electoral reforms are likely to happen until we the people demand such changes from both Republicans and Democratic lawmakers.

POLITICAL CHOICES SHOULD BE FREE OF PERSECUTION. ECHO PRESS. 2021. FEB 12TH.

I am disheartened to read that Republican party voters fear persecution because of their political choice. Let's do something about it.

The Founding Fathers tended to dislike the idea of political parties. They imagined elections whereby noble legislators were not influenced by any one party.

Today, we know that political parties are a fundamental component of regular, free and fair elections.

Yet, our federal Constitution does not expressly protect the right of citizens to make political choices.

I suggest that we add a simple amendment to the Constitution that reads, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged on the account of political party membership."

Let us work together to secure the right of all Americans to make political choices free of persecution.