Census, Redistricting and Protecting the Vote- Help Wanted!

Actions, Activists and Follow Up, Events

Voting is at the heart of our democracy.

It must be protected from:

  • Cyber attacks and hacking
  • Voter suppression- making it harder for some communities or individual’s ability to vote
  • Gerrymandering- which dilutes the power of the individual vote as lines are drawn to benefit one party or incumbent

Want to help protect our election security? Call your MN state senator today and insist that they pass a bill that would allow full use of the national Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funding. As this MinnPost article outlines, “Yet Minnesota remains the only state in the U.S. that hasn’t accepted the voting security money. And it might be awhile before it does. That’s because the House version accepts all $6.6 million while the latest Senate version accepts only $1.5 million.” Yes- we are the ONLY state not using the full funding.  We worry that this may put a giant cyber attack target right on our state! Call your MN state senator today !

Want to help Restore the Vote to Minnesotans that have completed their felony sentences and are in our communities living, working and paying taxes?  Check out the Restore the Vote MN website for ways to get involved!

Census

The next census takes place in 2020.  Why is it important? As the NY Times explains an accurate count of every person in the country impacts:

We need to insure that the census counts every single person, and that no community or individual feels intimidated or is excluded from this process. Placing a “citizenship” question on the census was designed to do just that, which is why lower courts have determined that this is unconstitutional and this issue will eventually be heard by the Supreme Court.

Want to help protect the integrity of our census? Join the Minnesota Census Mobilization Partnership here to help!

Redistricting

Once the census is done in 2020, redistricting will begin.  Based on the count, numbers of representatives from each state for the US House is determined.  It is predicted that Minnesota may lose one of its congressional seats due to our change in population.  New maps are then drawn for both federal- congressional districts, and state- MN senate and MN house districts.

This “redistricting” takes place once every 10 years, which is why it’s so important that this process is transparent, and puts voters at the center of the process.  We don’t want to wait another decade to get this right! Incumbents and political parties should not have an undue influence on where the district lines are drawn, as this would be politicians picking their voters vs voters picking their elected officials.  This political “gerrymandering” is a term you may be familiar with and we need to work now to insure that this does not happen here!

Common Cause Mn along with partnerships and input from grassroots groups all over the state has been working diligently on this issue, having supported HF1605 and now SF2575.

Want to help insure we have #FairMaps? Call your state senator today and ask them to support SF2575 as this bill:

  • Literally reflects negotiations between BOTH House and Senate members of BOTH parties.
  • It maximizes transparency and accountability, allows for public members to sit on as commission members
  • AND provides a neutral set of maps that the Court can refer to in assessing if any maps submitted by the legislature are gerrymandered.
  • This bill takes into account the timing necessary to protect the 2021 redistricting cycle
  • SF2575 puts MN voters first NOT parties OR politicians. https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php…

**Learn more from League of Women Voters MN- Redistricting Reform document

Watch video excerpts from Third Thursday: Protecting Democracy, Elections, Redistricting and Campaigns- with Annastacia Belladonna-Carrera – Director at Common Cause MN and Nick Harper- Civic Engagement Director at League of Women Voters This forum was moderated by Manny Munson-Regala from Indivisible Minnesota Legislative Action (IMLA)

Want to make sure redistricting provides fair maps that put voters first for the long haul ?