Former Cop Says Voter Fraud Claims Exaggerated
Former St. Paul Police Chief and now Senator John Harrington has investigated a lot of crimes. So when he heard claims of "thousands" of cases of over fraud in Minnesota he did his own investigation. He found only 18 cases that might possibly have been prevented under a proposed constitutional amendment requiring a photo ID to vote. He pulled the records from Ramsey County and found there were 1,554 cases of voter fraud sent to the Ramsey County Attorney. 1,357 of the cases turned out to be felons who had voted. Only a "tiny fraction" of those felons got charged with voter fraud said Senator Harriington because there was no evidence that they were felons at the time they had voted or they knew they were not supposed to vote. "Some of them had not been incarcerated, had not seen a probation officer for 10 years or more." When a similar voter photo ID bill came up last year, the cost was estimated near $40 million. "You divide that by 18, and that seems like a lot of money (per case)", said Harrington. "And we found the 18 anyway, even without the ID's. This is a bill, this is a constitutional amendment that's trying to find a problem to fix."