The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

December 29, 2006

Incoming secretary of state visits Kato, touts participation

Dan Linehan

MANKATO — Blue Earth County’s experiments to encourage voting by college students should be implemented statewide, incoming Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said during a stop in Mankato to visit township officials.

“It is true that your county is way ahead of the others,” Ritchie said Thursday, five days before he will assume the office, which focuses on elections along with business and government documents. He ousted two-term incumbent Mary Kiffmeyer in November on a national wave of Democratic victories along with promises to improve voter turnout.

One of the solutions he touts eases same-day registration by college students. It allows school-issued photo IDs — cross-checked with lists of registered students — to be used in lieu of utility bills that dorm dwellers often don’t have.

In Blue Earth County, both on- and off-campus students are already taking advantage of the offer, Taxpayer Services Director Patty O’Connor said, making the process a step above counties that only use dormitory lists.

About 22 percent of the county’s residents are between 18 and 24, the highest proportion of college-aged people in the state.

And Ritchie suggested that it’s easier to innovate in mid-size counties, which lack the inertia and the internal obstacles to change seen in Ramsey and Hennepin counties.

Ritchie, 54, is a Georgia native who served as the president of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy between 1986 and 2006.

He was invited to southern Minnesota to visit township officials and discuss issues around local elections.

Ritchie also pledged to wash away the stain of partisan politics he said Kiffmeyer brought to the office.

“We have to act to make the changes and change the public’s perception,” he said.

For example, he’d like to change a rule requiring election judges to declare their political party.

That disclosure requirement sometimes dissuades residents from becoming a judge, O’Connor agreed.

Election integrity is another issue looming in the national consciousness, Ritchie said.

“People get enough national news that they’re even nervous about elections in Minnesota,” he said.

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