Ritchie alters title for voter photo ID amendment

Caucus straw polls
Henry Stachyra Jr. waits for caucus participants at Rutherford Elementary School in Stillwater, Minn. Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012. A voter identification scanning systems was being tested at the Stillwater site.
MPR Photo/Jeffrey Thompson

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has reworked the title for a constitutional amendment seeking to impose a photo ID requirement for voting.

The state elections chief announced in a news release Monday that the ballot question would carry the following title: "Changes to In-Person & Absentee Voting & Voter Registration; Provisional Ballots."

Sponsors of the measure had set the title previously as "Photo Identification Required for Voting."

The announcement comes as Ritchie, a Democrat, was sued for substituting a title on the amendment to define marriage in the state constitution as between one man and one woman.

Backers of the amendment object to his reworked title and say he is casting their measure in a negative light and overstepping bounds by crafting his own.

Ritchie has declined comment.

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