Research should be used
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Editor,
I read, with interest, the report in the Valley Journal from May 5 about information from Senator Daines’ office, which indicated that he felt the Real ID law was no big deal. It was onerous to Montana families, and so on, and should be delayed. This when national security agencies have indicated that threats from domestic terrorism are real and of concern. Yet, many states are working to ramp up voter ID requirements when there is no evidence that there was voter fraud during the last election.
I contacted the election offices in 10 Montana counties to inquire about voter fraud in MT. One person in Lewis and Clark County was caught because a parent signed the mail-in ballot of a voting age child. It was caught because we have good methods in place to catch these types of things, comparing signatures in this case.
One election office employee did mention that in her county a number of old ranchers have always voted absentee but were against mail-in voting. This just shows the ignorance out there that is fueling the voter suppression issue.
Ignorance and hatred seemed to be the main themes of the recent legislative session. Another example of ignorance was the change in wildlife hunting seasons and bag limits. As far as I can tell, the basis for the new wolf hunting laws was based on the very unscientific evidence that people were not filling their elk tags. Hmmm … very scientific. No elk population trends studies, no determining what predators were killing all those elk calves and so on. Heaven forbid we should actually look at the science or the numbers.
Then, there are all those transgender kids out there who would do anything to run on a girls track team. Right on. Any estimates on the numbers of trans kids in MT? Embarrassing.
Vicky Maclean
Ronan
