Republicans voted to revise and advance the bill today that would now require voters who register on the day of election to cast provisional ballots.
In a Presidential election year about 500,000 people use Minnesota’s same day voter registration says Beth Fraser, who is with the MInnesota Secretary of State’s office.
“There are about 2.5 million provisional ballots cast nationwide in 2008. So adding 500,000 in just our state is an incredibly huge number.
“I don’t know how this could be implemented without electronic poll books at all polling places, so there’s also a substantial cost.”
Beyond the electronic poll books, additional election judges would be required to take care of the provisional ballots. DFL Senators say the costs of that are unknown, but would probably result in higher property taxes because local governments would have to pay for the extra election judges.
