E-book Original

Available for $0.99 from most popular e-book vendors, including Minnesota Historical Society Bookstore, amazon.com, bn.com, kobobooks.com, and iTunes.

Guest blog post by Jim Ragsdale

Minnesota Voter ID and the National Debate: What You Need to Know by veteran reporter Jim Ragsdale is a clear, accessible, and timely primer on Minnesota’s role in the national “voting wars,” highlighting the history of voting rights and voting integrity while also explaining the complexity of voting law and its relations to the Civil Rights movement.

Minnesota Voter ID and the National Debate explains Minnesota’s role in the national “voting wars,” in which laws and amendments are proposed to impose new voting requirements, including requiring a photo ID for all voters. Journalist Jim Ragsdale writes from the front lines of a political battle that will culminate on November 6, when Minnesota voters consider a constitutional amendment that would embed photo ID and related changes into the state’s constitution. Ragsdale discusses the history of the franchise nationally and in Minnesota, putting this battle in perspective as one of many involving voting rights and voting integrity while also explaining the complexity of voting law and its relations to the Civil Rights movement. That narrative, written to help readers understand not just the Minnesota angle but the importance of the issue nationally, takes a fair-minded, journalistic approach, ending with the research into how these laws have—or have not—affected the way we vote.

Jim Ragsdale is a veteran newspaper reporter in the Twin Cities, currently a political and government reporter for the Star Tribune, working out of the basement of the Minnesota State Capitol. He has worked for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minnesota Public Radio in his thirty-year journalism career, covering a variety of beats. He also coauthored children’s school musicals and performs live monologues on Almanac on Twin Cities Public Television. Ragsdale grew up in Los Angeles and now lives in Minneapolis.

Minnesota Voter ID and the National Debate is the first release from MHS Express, the new digital imprint from the Minnesota Historical Society Press (MHS Press) of short-form e-books. Be they essays from published works or forthcoming titles or original pieces, MHS Express e-books present quick reads on relevant and compelling topics.

$0.99 e-book, 978-0-87351-902-1

Jim Ragsdale on Twitter: @jwrags

Twitter handle for the book: #minnvoterid