Minnesota ACT responds to Power Line's accusations

Earlier this morning, I questioned a post on Power Line claiming that Minnesota ACT is attempting to take advantage of Minnesota's "lax same day voter registration requirements" to generate illegal votes for Kerry.

I just got off the phone with Meighan Stone from Minnesota ACT, who was kind enough to speak with me though she's extremely busy, this being the day before the election and all. She hasn't had time to give the Power Line post a close look. She told me that Minnesota ACT did send out the email Power Line posted, but she could not verify if they posted the full email or just part of it. When I read this paragraph from the email to Meighan, "We will be creating name badges that include your Ward and Precinct information for each of the thousands of volunteers that day to make it easier to find a volunteer to vouch for a voter at the polls," she told me that Minnesota ACT is not printing name badges with Ward and Precinct information.

Addiionally, Meighan told me that Minnesota ACT has "no widescale vouching operation." ACT volunteers tell voters interested in same-day registration to bring one or all of the following: a drivers license, state ID, utility bill to the address you currently live at, or student ID. If a voter has none of these, ACT volunteers ask them to use their neighbors to vouch for them. If an ACT volunteer ever vouches for a Minnesota voter, the bar is set very high. Basically, the ACT volunteer would have to goto the voters house, pick them up, then drive them to the polls; so saying that Minnesota ACT will have volunteers at the polls who will just randomly vouch for voters is wrong. Additionally, Meighan told me that the Minnesota media knows this story is ridiculous and that's why it hasn't made it in the local press, even though Minnesota Republicans have tried making a story out of it (as evidenced by this press release I found). Meighan told me that Minnesota ACT is very open with the press, and invites them to view their operations, even if Minnesota ACT is only given short notice. In other words, Minnesota ACT has nothing to hide.

Meighan also told me that the Minnesota's vouching law is rarely used. In this Election FAQ from Minnesota's Secretary of State that she sent me, the vouching law is hardly cited.

So that's Minnesota ACT's side of the story. I've emailed my concerns to The Big Trunk and tracked back this story to Power Line. I await their response.