"Minnesota is at the top of the list for our parks, our education, our environment and our democracy," said Mark Ritchie addressing the 10th Anniversary of the founding of FairVote Minnesota at the University Club in St. Paul. FairVote MN is an organization whose mission is to work for better democracy through a unique focus on the voting system. We educate the public about the effect our voting system has on the quality of our democracy and about alternative voting systems that may improve public life. "However, this is not the democracy, the environment, educational system or parks that we need or deserve."

"The result of not improving our democracy in the US," continued Ritchie. "has been the degradation of our environment, the war in Iraq, the destruction of our constitution." The big question he addressed is how did we get into this situation with our democracy. He promised to write a report about the state of our democracy in Minnesota (although it sounds like he may discuss some national issues that affect us as well). Attendees got a preview of what will be in this report.

Where are we in our understanding of our democracy?

"What are we seeing?" asked Ritchie. "Students are not taught enough about the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These three documents talk a lot about the common good. Its nearly impossible to include any discussion about the common good into any civics curriculum. Teachers are going online to get materials for teaching about these documents. The only things they are finding is stuff for home schooling and these mainly mention that God is used four times, there is no discussion of the common good."

Where are we in terms of participation?

"Minnesota consistently leads the nation in participation," stated Ritchie. "However, in Minneapolis where I'm from, participation is really low, sometimes around 50%. How does Duluth and the Red Lake Reservation maintain 90% participation?"

"Money is a huge barrier to participation," he continued. "It takes a huge amount of money to run for office. Candidates need to be able to go without a paycheck for the duration of the campaign."

"There are also problems with our caucus, convention and primaries. The media is a problem. When they are consolidating and laying people off, that means less coverage of what's going on. Now there's also blogging and anonymous blogging. I think attacks from anonymous blogs is a problem."

How are our election systems doing?

Ritchie talked about how its now clear that we cannot rely on electronic voting machines that have no paper trail and have been shown to be easily hackable. Electronic voting using Diebold machines are a barrier to participation because they damage the public's trust in the outcome of the election. "In fact its a fundamental challenge to our entire democracy," Ritchie claimed. "African-Americans don't trust the outcome of our elections because of their lack of trust in the election system. Unfortunately, I don't have enough data, I don't know where we stand."

What is the story of our democracy?

Ritchie expounded at length about deceptive voting practices and voter suppression. He saw literature in the 2006 election that claimed "voters should vote at the Sabbathani Center [across the highway from where he lives and not even in his Ward] when I knew that they shouldn't vote there." Without mentioning her name, Ritchie claimed that the attempt by his direct predecessor to use US Attorney for MN Tommy Heffelfinger to suppress urban, minority voters was a classic example of voter suppression. "As we delve further into this case, we're going to see how the Department of Justice has politicized our justice system to gain an edge in the election system."

"The root of all this is there are powerful people in American who have no respect for democracy," he asserted. "They do not believe in democracy, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. This is an actual assault on our democracy. They have no respect or knowledge of the history of our democracy."

"They have allowed torture, they have suppressed people's freedom of religion and tried to impose a particular religion on everyone else." Ritchie sees democracy as a white pine forest. White pines are like the state of Minnesota in that they only reach maturity at 150 years old which is how old our state is. We need to be growing young trees in this forest so that they can replace the old trees that will die when they're 300 or 400 years old. Because of the disrepect for democracy in this country, its clear that these people who have no respect for our democracy really have no belief in the future. They are only interested in holding power right now to hell with any consequences.

So the our democracy is under attack from people who don't believe in it. We must protect it by pushing for Instant Runoff Voting and other election improvements. I look forward to reading Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's full report on the state of our democracy in Minnesota.