The day before the election, I had an opportunity to purchase a used canoe. After completing the transaction, I loaded the 30-year-old boat atop my SUV and headed to city hall. I had called the Department of Natural Resources earlier that day to find-out what I needed to do once I had made the purchase. I was told that since this was the first time the boat was to be registered in my name, I would need to appear in-person with the bill-of-sale at a Deputy Registrar’s office.

When I arrived at city hall, the Registrar asked for my driver’s license and the boat’s hull identification number. The Registrar then entered this information into a computer system which immediately verified its accuracy. The system indicated that the hull number was already registered under another person’s name. But after some investigation, the Registrar determined the prior registration was no longer active. After giving the Registrar a check for $24, I was provided with a watercraft registration card and a permit that I was required to affix to the hull of the canoe. The whole process took less than 10 minutes.

The next day, while waiting in line at the polls to vote, I observed a long line of people waiting to complete same-day voter registrations. While some people were using driver’s licenses to confirm their identity, I noticed an individual who appeared to be using the “vouching” process. Vouching is a provision in Minnesota law that allows an individual to register on Election Day by simply having someone from the precinct confirm his or her identity and residence. I watched as the individual filled-out a paper registration card and then was immediately provided with a ballot to cast their vote. There was no verification by election officials that the information provided on the registration card was, in fact, accurate.

I began to compare and contrast the process I had experienced the day before to register my canoe with the process being used for same-day voter registrations. When registering the canoe, I was asked to produce my driver’s license to confirm my identity. In same-day voter registrations, the applicant is not required to produce any form of photographic identification. When registering a canoe, the Registrar entered my information into a computer system that performed a real-time verification to confirm its accuracy. In same-day voter registrations, the voter’s registration information is recorded on a paper card which is not entered into a computer system until several weeks after the election. Same-day registrations are supposedly “verified” using a 30-year-old process of mailing a post card to the address listed on the registration card. If the post card is returned as being “undeliverable”, the voter’s registration record is supposed to be flagged so the voter can be “challenged” at the next election. If the voter registration is fraudulent, however, there is no way to “undo” the fraudulent vote, since the fraudulent ballot was counted together with all the valid ballots on Election Day.

A review of Minnesota’s voter registration rolls prior to this year’s election revealed over 100,000 voter registrations with addresses that are considered to be either “vacant” or “undeliverable” by the United States Postal Service. The post card verification process that was implemented prior to the availability of computer systems is obviously sorely lacking.

It is amazing how vulnerable Minnesota’s election process is to voter fraud. Any person desiring to vote more than once in a single election would simply need to find someone to vouch for their identity in a different precinct on Election Day. A person could also easily cast multiple ballots by posing as another registered voter. Since the Secretary of State does not do a timely job of flagging the registrations of the deceased persons and individuals who have moved, a dishonest person could simply obtain a list of these voter registration records and travel from precinct-to-precinct casting multiple ballots by representing themselves as these individuals.

All of this begs the simply question as to why Minnesota puts more of a priority on securing the process for registering an old canoe than on securing its voter registration process. The technology is readily available to perform real-time verification of voter registrations. But some politicians have resisted attempts to implement these controls, claiming that they would “intimidate” or “disenfranchise” some voters. This is complete nonsense. The only reason someone would favor a process with known deficiencies is that they know illegal voting is occurring and they want it to continue. Minnesota voters deserve a voter registration process that is as least as secure as the process used to register a boat.