Posted in: Minnesota, Voter Protection

Star Tribune: Photo ID edict could hit 215,000 Minnesota voters

Tag voter id

From the Star Tribune

Those affected could be people like Evelyn Collier, 79, and her fellow residents at the Camden Care Center nursing home in north Minneapolis, many of whom had long since let their state IDs lapse. When they needed travel documents for a Caribbean cruise two years ago, the staff spent months trying to round up birth and marriage certificates and other documents needed for a photo ID.

Most of the documents eventually came in, but Collier, an African-American woman born on a farm in Mississippi in 1932, missed the trip for lack of an official birth certificate.

Or 63-year-old Greg Jackson — that is the name he has used as long as he can remember — who arrived in Minnesota seven years ago with an Illinois ID and failing eyesight. When he sent home for his birth certificate, he was surprised to learn that his legal name was different from the name he had always used, and which was on his Illinois ID.

Several document requests, assistance by volunteers from Little Brothers-Friends of the Elderly, and a $320 legal name change followed before Jackson obtained his Minnesota ID.

“If it was that hard for me to get my ID, with my impediments, what about all the impediments other people have?” said Jackson, of St. Paul.

Get the full story at StarTribune.com