Minnesota officials are hopeful a new program that asks residents to vote in honor of a veteran will draw even more people to the voting booths in November.
In a Wednesday morning visit with the Herald editorial board, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the state first tried the program during the 2008 election cycle. That year, 72,000 people decorated buttons with the name of the veteran they were honoring with their vote and many offered written tributes.
The goal in 2010 is to have 150,000 people participate, he said.
It's one of many efforts Ritchie's office is making to reach the million or so Minnesotans who don't vote. He said getting residents to think about voting as a fundamental part of citizenship can help people overcome the feeling their one vote won't be important.
"The point is that we are trying to find ways to help people think about voting in the larger context, not that their individual vote would matter," he said. "But, more importantly, that voting is part of a historic process and that we have this gift of the democracy and that we all need to participate."
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Ritchie said some of the tributes he's read were from people who had never voted before participating in the program in 2008.
Ritchie said the idea for the program started a few years ago after he asked a Hermantown, Minn., official how the northeastern part of the state was able to consistently get more than 90 percent of its eligible residents to cast their votes.
"And he said, 'We're very patriotic, we take care of what we love and we vote,'" Ritchie said.
He met with other secretaries of state to hear how their states were encouraging residents to vote, and said several states now have a similar program that asks people to vote in honor of veterans.
- On the web: Find out more about the Vote in Honor of a Veteran program at www.mnvotes.org .
