As advocates for people with disabilities we closely followed the stories about the complaint that was filed in Crow Wing County alleging voter assistance fraud and exploitation of voters with disabilities. We are pleased that the county attorney took these matters seriously and conducted a thorough investigation. The results of the investigation confirm what we have known for some time: the election system in Minnesota works for people with disabilities.
Voting is one of the most cherished and fundamental rights in America. People with disabilities have the same right to vote as other citizens. Minnesota law provides the necessary safeguards to ensure the integrity of our elections. Citizens need not take a competency or literacy test in order to vote. Indeed, requiring these tests would violate the U.S. and Minnesota Constitutions. In Minnesota, only a court may decide whether an individual is competent to vote. Individuals under guardianship have the right to vote unless a court specifically revokes that right.
Minnesota law also ensures that people with disabilities, like other citizens, have access to the ballot box. Individuals with disabilities are able to vote absentee if they are not able to make it to their polling place on election day. At the polling place, individuals needing physical assistance in marking the ballot or needing to have the ballot read to them have a choice of voting methods. They can either use the Automark voting machine, which allows an individual to vote independently and privately, or they can have someone assist them in the voting booth. It is their choice.
That the voters in Crow Wing County exercised their lawful right to vote is a sign that the right balance has been struck.
JUSTIN PAGE is a staff attorney and PAMELA HOOPES is legal director with the Minnesota Disability Law Center.
Comments (8)
Add commentProtecting our Disabled should be number one job not exploiting
Another attempt to change the subject by those that should be protecting the disabled, turning a blind eye while they are possibly being exploited by others with a political agenda. Everyone wants everyone who can vote to vote, but not the owners and "assistants" voting for someone who is disabled. Saying that Crow Wing County Attorney Don Ryan didn't find evidenence after not interviewing the other eyewitness and didn't positively identify the suspect, therefore the disabled where not exploited is dysfunctional at best.
The number one job of group homes is to protect the vulnerable disabled, otherwise they would be living on their own.
Confirming fraud meant admitting guilt!
{We are pleased that the county attorney took these matters seriously and conducted a thorough investigation. The results of the investigation confirm what we have known for some time: the election system in Minnesota works for people with disabilities.}
Choosing to ignore the primary reason for the investigation doesn’t mean the system works.
The fraud that was identified was because group home employees were filling out the ballot without the mentally challenged individual having any input as to which candidates were being selected.
If you believe there wasn’t any fraud because County Auditor staff and group home employees didn’t confirm the reported fraud, then you haven’t realized by doing so, they would’ve admitted to the fraud or made their boss look very bad.
Now really, even with half a brain, do you know of anybody that would do this?
Jeff Czeczok
Funny
Funny how those beating their chests about protecting who can and cannot vote, based on mental disablilities, are once again laying down a smoke screen in an attempt to cover up the original complaint.
Namely, that those assisting the diabled were observed by credible- and multiple- witnesses of making voting decisions for people who had only spent seconds in the booth that day.
It has nothing to do with abilities, or interpreting those diablilities, or judging who should vote. NOTHING about that.
It has everything to do with the exploitation of those vulnerable individuals for possibly nefarious reasons.
Now how can THAT be construed as attempting to limit these diabled folks from voting? Only the left can manage, with a straight face yet, to claim that this is about disabled voting rights.
It is clearly a case of fraudulent acts being committed by these "aides" which have been totally ignored by the county attorney.
It begs the question for those who claim Minnesota's system should be held up as a "model" for the nation:
Exactly how much voter fraud do you deem to be ACCEPTABLE?
The county attorney's role is to gether evidence and present that evidence- whatever it may be- to a grand jury.
It is NOT the county attorney's job to act as sole judge and jury in determining innocence or guilt. Perhaps Mr. Ryan slept through his high school Civics classes?
And.........
..........if our voting laws are so mushy and lacking in teeth, then why do we even HAVE voter laws?
Why waste everyone's time with voting if only those who are more than willing to participate in fraudulent schemes are going to be counted?
As the progressive left's mentor and hero, Joseph Stalin said, "It's not who votes that counts. It's who counts the votes."
It was reported and investigated
The incident at the courthouse was reported and it was investigated. No wrongdoing was found.
If anyone thinks they are aware of any abuses, go ahead and report it AND know that it will be investigated.
If you are trying to find irregularities, you may want to hang out at another courthouse or in another state.
By the way, if you would like to know more about the entire voting process, volunteer to be an Election Judge. Contact your County Auditor by July in order to receive the 3 to 4 hours of training in August and be ready to work ALL DAY (6am to 10+pm) on the Primary and on the General Election days.
assumptions
they are assuming that all group home workers are Democrats trying to tip the elections? I hope they know that group home workers go through lots of training on what they can and cannot do around election time...
this 'fraud' case had so many holes in it that it could have been swiss cheese
were you there? Of course, you weren't
wrote:The fraud that was identified was because group home employees were filling out the ballot without the mentally challenged individual having any input as to which candidates were being selected.
Jeff Czeczok
and silly drummer wrote:
"those assisting the diabled were observed by credible- and multiple- witnesses of making voting decisions for people who had only spent seconds in the booth that day.
It has nothing to do with abilities, or interpreting those diablilities, or judging who should vote."
Clearly, Jeff, you weren't there yourself, and neither was silly drummer.
First of all - this has everything to do with whether or not those disabled persons were competent - as it turned out they were - or not competent to make a decision. Monty Jensen was wrong, he misrepresented their abilities. The investigators interviewed the disabled people, and they also checked that their right to vote was legal through the courts. People who were CAPABLE, unlike Monty Jensen, had determined these were competent voters who could speak for themselves and make their own selections - and had done so for years in prior elections, without any problems like what Jensen claimed.
The only two people who claimed to have seen staff assisting disabled voters were NOT credible. No one else has supported their description of events - including those disabled people who spoke for themselves!
And Jensen was not a credible observer for other reasons. He claimed 25 OR MORE disabled people were voting. There were 8. He claimed they were voting at the same time he was voting, at 4:30. They were there at 3:00. Jensen incorrectly identified the assistants helping the voters as female; they were male. He claimed they all had their ballots marked for democrats - but he was never close enough to any of these voters, apparently to see. Voting is more privae than that - we all are allowed to vote with some degree of privacy, not with people peeking over our shoulders, including disabled voters. Jensen claimed the disabled voted in booths - they didn't, they voted at a counter-like area, in full view of the auditor and staff.
In the KSAX interview, Jensen claims: "An affidavit, filed Monday by Brainerd resident Montgomery Jensen, claims a large group of mentally handicapped people were told whom to vote for by mental health staff members and that staff filled out the ballots themselves without the disabled voters close by." and ""a staff member from a facility trying to coerce a mentally incapacitated individual back to the voting booth " and "In an interview Monday, Jensen said he doesn't believe these mentally handicapped people should have the right to vote, unless they are accompanied by a parent or guardian."
and, from the same interview, Jensen claimed:
" he did not know what group or facility the handicapped people and staff came from."
Except that doesn't make sense. Jensen doensn't know the relationship of the people to the disabled voters they were helping. There was no way to tell if they were the guardians or family of those voters or not.They dont wear any distinguishing clothing or ID, for privacy of their clients. Nor do all of the people who receive services from the Clark Lake group home all reside at a group home facility.
I think Jensen is a liar - for all of the above discrepancies - but also, about knowing who these people are. One of the staff, who matched the description of the woman Jensen claimed to have seen, did see Jensen in the Crow Wing courthouse earlier in the week. And he apparently saw her, while he was hanging out as an uncredentialed poll-observer wannabe, while she was there on business, and was accompanied by a disabled client. Funny how that was the description he came up with for his story............except that she wasn't working on that Friday or anywhere near the court house. Gosh......that sure sounds to me like Jensen did know who the group home staff was, and it certainly seems to me given the extraordinary amount of detail Jensen got wrong, that he made his story up, guessing at the description of the staff member.
Apparently silly drummer and Jeff C. need to look at a dictionary to get a better understanding of what credible means. It doesn't mean a glaringly inaccurate accusation that is unsupported by any corroborating evidence, and which IS credibly disputed by everyone else.
Good for you oakleaf! There are more holes than cheese to Jensen's swiss.
http://ksax.com/article/stories/s1818643.shtml
re: assumptions
Very interesting point minnesnowda (and Dog Gone). Why is it assumed that the group home workers were Dems? I guess because it is obvious. Those who care about the disabled are by necessity compassionate. What does that say that we (Dem. & Rep. alike) assume that a group home worker is NOT a Republican? I just can't believe that the concerned party was willing to publicly point this out via their accusation. Regardless, it still remains mere assumption.