Minneapolis Star Tribune. March 13, 2021.
Editorial: Voting rights are under attack again
Across the U.S. - including in Minnesota - some want to make it harder to cast a ballot.
Voting is a sacred right in this country. As the foundation upon which our democracy rests, its broad participation is to be encouraged.
It is nothing short of shameful, then, to see blatant attempts at voter suppression in the name of “election integrity” that in fact do nothing to address that integrity. Shortening poll hours in Iowa, limiting polling locations, banning Sunday absentee voting in Georgia to limit “Souls to the Polls” voting drives by largely Black churches - none of these address possible voter fraud. They are not even fig leaves. Their sole purpose is to limit voter participation, making it harder for some to engage in the most basic of civil rights.
Lawmakers in 43 states are pushing more than 250 bills that would limit access. These include attempts to resurrect old limits on absentee voting that required reasons why the voter could not cast a ballot in person.
Minnesota is not immune. Republicans here are making another attempt to institute photo ID, which voters soundly rejected in 2012 when it came before them as a constitutional amendment.
It must be said, again, that Minnesota and the nation just came through one of the most scrutinized elections ever, and passed with flying colors. How do we know? Because the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the National Association of Secretaries of State, the National Association of State Election Directors, and the election unit at the Department of Homeland Security under former President Donald Trump all declared “the November 3 election to be the most secure in American history.”
We know because in Minnesota rigorous audits and reviews were conducted in 87 counties that assured us of election integrity. It is particularly dismaying to see these attempts in our state, where a strong commitment to civic participation has earned Minnesota some of the highest turnout rates in the country, election after election. Citizens should not have to run a gauntlet simply to cast a vote. It is their right as Americans to vote.
“We all need to focus on what the truth is,” Secretary of State Steve Simon told an editorial writer. “The Minnesota election was fair, accurate and secure. That is a fact. That was the case nationwide as well.”
When mistakes are made, Simon said, they typically are just that - mistakes, not attempts at deliberate fraud. He said in Minnesota there might be a couple of dozen such cases in a state of more than 5 million people. “To get at those couple dozen,” he said, “you might shut out hundreds, even thousands of voters.”
One of the most important innovations the state took on to increase voter participation, Simon said, was when it passed no-excuses absentee balloting in 2013. “It sailed through on an overwhelming bipartisan vote,” he said. Since then, it has only grown in popularity and proved vital to efforts to vote during the pandemic.
Gov. Tim Walz told an editorial writer that “when you’re afraid of the voters, you want to make it harder for them to vote. We’re not afraid of voters in this state. And you are wasting every minute of your time if you are working on one of these bills, because they will never cross my desk.”
There are some common-sense improvements Minnesota can make to its voting process. Simon said that a temporary measure that gave election officials a 14-day head start to process absentee ballots should be made permanent, rather than snapping back to one week. “If you want to get ballots counted by Election Day, that’s one of the best ways,” he said.
That would be progress. Lawmakers should heed Simon’s advice.
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St. Cloud Times. March 12, 2021.
Editorial: The hope of an end to the COVID-19 pandemic is still in our own hands
One year and one week ago, Minnesota confirmed its first case of COVID-19, spinning the state and the world into chaos. The pandemic proved both frightening and disruptive, as is expected of any historic crisis, but also unexpectedly and oddly monotonous.
The first year of COVID-19 was a disaster that unfolded in disconcertingly slow motion, at low volume and behind closed doors. After the initial shock of shutdowns and shortages, for many who did not become seriously ill or lose a loved one, the defining daily sign of the pandemic was a haunting, flattening experience. For the past year, many people lived a life that was almost normal - just one with most of the high points and connections peeled away.
So the slivers of hope reflected in the arrival of vaccines, the success so far in getting them distributed to those at highest risk and the promise that most people who want to be vaccinated will be able to do so within a matter of months, are unsurprisingly being met with subdued joy. Photos on social media show vaccination cards and shot selfies, messages of relief:
“One down, one to go.”
We’ve stated making tentative plans again, looking at airplane ticket prices, talking about setting dates for weddings, thinking about what work will feel like with more coworkers and fewer Zoom meetings.
The temptation is to rush to what’s next, because it’s got to be better than this. We feel it everywhere, so close to what we all hope is the finish line: We made it through, it’s almost over, we’re in the clear!
New guidelines announced by the Centers for Disease Control last week seem obviously rooted in sympathy with exactly that instinct: To get on with it. They also seem to be aimed at heading off the full abandonment of caution displayed by five states - Iowa, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Montana - that have recently dropped mask mandates.
The CDC’s latest advice says people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can gather like the good old days - without masks or the 6-foot social distancing bubble. They can even visit unvaccinated people from one other household if they are at low risk for severe disease.
“You can visit your grandparents if you’ve been vaccinated and they have been, too,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Monday. “If grandparents have been vaccinated, they can visit their daughter and her family even if they have not been vaccinated, so long as the daughter and her family are not at risk for severe disease.”
We’re closer than we’ve been in a year to a return to normal life. But we’re not out of the woods yet. We have a significant portion of the population who will not take the vaccines when offered. We have new variants popping up regularly. We still have friends and neighbors and family members dying.
So the CDC is still advising against larger gatherings. They’re still saying masks and social distancing in public are the basic, common-sense measures we should be taking for now.
Because while there is the promise of “over,” this pandemic is not over yet. It’s on us to protect one another in all the ways that have become second nature by now: Social distance. Wash your hands. Limit your circles of contact. Get vaccinated when you can. Wear the damn mask in the store.
Yes, we’re stuck in this flat place of ennui and isolation a little longer. But the experts say those mundane, maddening steps are still our fastest route to an eventual joyful afternoon at the State Fair or Target Field, Summertime by George or big family weddings, huge graduation parties and sold-out concerts.
It looks like we are so close to the goal. Let’s not trip now.
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Mankato Free Press. March 11, 2021.
Editorial: Chauvin trial ’ Finding an unbiased jury difficult
In a courtroom in a well-barricaded tower in downtown Minneapolis, a judge this week - and for days to come - is presiding over jury selection for the trial of Derek Chauvin.
Needed are more than a dozen conscientious citizens willing and able to set aside what they already know, feel and believe about one of the most radioactive deaths in Minnesota history. The death last Memorial Day of George Floyd at the knee of Chauvin, then a Minneapolis police officer, sparked nights of rioting in the Twin Cities and elsewhere.
It hardly the first case of civil unrest from a populace that feels itself less protected by police than oppressed. This nation has had decades of such incidents. Watts in 1965. Detroit in 1967. Ferguson in 2014. Kenosha in 2020. But the death of Floyd felt different; the nation, indeed the world, has seen the video of Chauvin kneeling nonchalantly on Floyd’s neck for as much as nine minutes as the Black man pleaded to be allowed to breathe.
It is difficult to imagine a more symbolic case of police impunity than that one.
Finding residents of Hennepin County without an opinion on the killing of George Floyd, and its reverberations, is probably impossible. Anybody that isolated from the world probably isn’t fit to sit in judgment of another human’s actions anyway. A more reasonable goal is a jury that can block out last spring’s trauma and reach a verdict strictly on what is revealed in the courtroom.
The prosecutors and defense have other goals. They want jurors who can be expected to vote their way. One day into jury selection the prosecution was already complaining to the judge that the defense was striking jurors on the basis of race. (The judge disagreed, at least in that specific case.)
The selection of the Chauvin jury, then, will be drawn out and contentious. It is also vitally important, not only for the defendant’s future but for the community. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.
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