By Mike Kaszuba
Minnesota does not need a law requiring photo identification at the polls because there have been relatively few cases of ineligible voting, two advocacy groups said Monday.
Citing data collected from county attorneys from the 2008 election, the two groups said that there were 26 convictions statewide of felons voting illegally – a figure representing 0.0009 percent of voters that year. Allegations of felons voting represented 77 percent of voter fraud investigations, the groups said. The other 23 percent of the investigations from the 2008 election – which did not lead to any convictions – involved charges of non-citizens voting, double voting, voting outside of jurisdiction and impersonating a voter, the groups said. The study was conducted by Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota and the Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance. The groups said the study was based on responses from 71 of the state's 87 counties.
