On the news tonight I was surprised to see the Democrat candidate for ND Secretary of State trying to propagate more lies that somewhat involve work I’ve done. I sat quiet the first time, but this time I’m calling her on it.

Tonight’s ballyhoo was about how the Secretary of State’s office has confused people into thinking they need a driver’s license to vote, and how suddenly people are approaching her to say they’re scared they can’t vote without a driver’s license. She implies that the Secretary of State’s Office is putting out false or incomplete information. That’s nonsense, and something specifically tackled by a series of voting videos produced by the Secretary of State’s Office and edited & animated by yours truly. These videos are produced for county officials and anyone else who wants them, for education purposes. The plan is that they’ll allow county officials to get up to speed so they can educate voters and answer their questions, and educate voters too…they work for everyone. Tackling voter education is the best way to increase turnout, and the SoS provides the tools to do so.

These are just thirteen of the graphics I made for those videos indicating what counts as valid ID, stressing the need for a street address to vote in the proper precinct. These videos also stress that it is possible to vote without ID, and how. The audio of the videos repeats the information multiple times, with vignettes illustrating different circumstances. What’s so confusing about that, Kristin?

What Kristin is probably really upset about is that Secretary Al Jaeger thwarted her attempt to take credit for it on behalf of the Democrats of North Dakota. In a June 19th letter to the editor of the Fargo Forum, she praised the videos and said they were the “product of legislation initiated by North Dakota’s national delegation in Washington, D.C.” Secretary Jaeger then set the record straight in a followup letter to the Forum editor the following weekend. And while federal legislation made funds available, the current Secretary of State (not Conrad, Pomeroy, or Dorgan) is the one who took on the effort and produced the videos. Besides, the President signed it into law with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress. He gets the blame for every law the Dems don’t like…can’t he get any credit for the ones they do?

So then Kristin flattered herself to say that the videos were an “answer to her comments” about youth voting in ND. These videos were initiated long before anyone ever cared who Kristin Hedger is, as if anyone does now. People from all over put months of work into producing them, and their hard work shows. Heck, even in news articles online and her own press releases, Kristin praises the videos. But of course, she says, more must be done. As if the current SoS is sitting in an ivory tower at 600 East Boulevard.

There were a lot of talented people from a lot of different entities that cooperated to produce these videos. I was privileged to work with those people, yet their hard labor is only a tool for Kristin and her political ambitions. One of these videos targets the youth voter, one targets the elderly voter, and one targets all voters. Yet another helps educate pollworkers on the special needs of voters with disabilities. These are all good educational tools…so good, in fact, that I’m working on similar videos for OTHER states because they have seen what North Dakota’s SoS has done. Our work is not good enough for Kristin Hedger, though.

Kristin, if you expect anyone to take you seriously, don’t go after an incumbent with the usual Democrat ploys. Come up with something on your own and build yourself up, don’t try to knock someone else down. And quit trying to build a campaign using someone else’s hard work for it; it exposes you for the small person that you are. See you in November.