Should MO voters be required to show a photo ID at the polls? Judge weighs voter ID law

A Missouri judge is weighing at trial this week whether a law requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID at the ballot box violates the state constitution.

The trial, which began Friday and is expected to run through at least Wednesday in Jefferson City, centers on the 2022 law, which includes the photo ID requirement. Previously, voters could use alternative options such as school IDs and utility bills to vote.

The Missouri NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Missouri, which sued over the law last year, argue in court filings that the law infringes on Missourians’ right to vote by requiring voters without government-issued IDs to comply with the “flawed and inadequate” process of filing provisional ballots.

“There is no guarantee that their vote will count,” the organizations wrote in a pre-trial brief. “The Voter ID Restrictions are unconstitutional, and any further enforcement of the law must be enjoined.”

Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem, who is overseeing the trial, dismissed the lawsuit in October 2022, saying that the plaintiffs failed to show that the law’s photo ID requirement would be “unconstitutionally burdensome for every voter in Missouri.” However, Beetem’s ruling gave the plaintiffs the opportunity to file an amended complaint, which they did in November 2022.

Attorneys for the state of Missouri and Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, the two defendants in the case, push back in court filings, arguing that the law “advances compelling government interests of election integrity and security.”

“Any burdens of getting an ID are not even attributable solely to the voter ID requirements of this law given the near ubiquity of the need for photo ID in modern life,” the defendants wrote in their brief.

Under the 2022 law, Missourians must use an ID issued by Missouri or the federal government in order to vote. If a voter does not have one, they can cast a provisional ballot. But for that ballot to count, the voter has to return to their polling place with the required ID or hope that the signature on their ballot matches the signature on file with the election authority.

Voting rights advocates have decried the legislation as an attempt to stifle voting rights. They have argued the voter ID requirements hurt people with disabilities, marginalized communities, seniors and students who don’t have the required forms of photo identification or means to get them.

“ID restrictions do nothing to stop voter fraud because there is no voter fraud,” Tom Bastian, a spokesperson for the ACLU of Missouri, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “Over the past twenty years, Missouri has had zero recorded instances of voter fraud that would be stopped by these provisions.”

Bastian added that the law’s requirements “place a heavy burden on registered voters, they confuse Missourians, and they decrease voter turnout.”

Ashcroft, who as secretary of state is in charge of overseeing Missouri’s elections, is also running for governor in 2024 on a staunchly conservative platform. He took to social media on Friday, saying “we are back in court defending voter integrity.”

The elections law from the GOP-controlled General Assembly and signed by Republican Gov. Mike Parson, came after nearly two years of false claims from former President Donald Trump and his supporters about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

It was a result of a sustained push from Missouri Republicans to enact some form of voter ID requirement. Missouri courts in 2006 and 2020 ruled that previous photo ID laws violated the state constitution.

On top of the League of Women Voters of Missouri and the Missouri NAACP, three individual voters are also plaintiffs in the case.

One is Renee Powell, a 53-year-old from Columbia who has epilepsy and mobility issues and uses a walker to move around. Powell’s non-driver ID expired in 2021, according to the plaintiff’s pre-trial brief, and the “only reason” she would get it renewed is to vote.

Obtaining a new ID would require a substantial amount of time and effort, including using public transit that would drop her off on a “busy roadway with no sidewalks, preventing her from using her rollator,” the brief said.

Another plaintiff, 36-year-old Kimberly Morgan of Fenton, has her first name misspelled on her birth certificate, state-issued ID and marriage certificate. Morgan has been unable to get these errors corrected to comply with the new law because the state has required her to submit documentation that’s at least five years old and includes her correct information.

The third plaintiff is John O’Connor, a 90-year-old Columbia man who is mainly homebound due to eyesight problems including complete blindness in one eye, hearing impairment and stability issues. It was only through the help of his wife and the DMV’s acceptance of an expired driver’s license against the department’s rules, that he was able to obtain an acceptable ID card, the brief said.

“Powell, O’Connor, and Morgan all experienced severe and real burdens because of (the law’s) Voter ID Restrictions,” Bastian said in his statement. “Their experiences represent those of thousands of Missourians impacted by the unconstitutional burdens created by (the law) for no reason than the myth of voter fraud.”

The plaintiffs completed their arguments and witness testimony in the case Tuesday afternoon and attorneys for the state began shortly after. After those arguments, which continued on Wednesday, Beetem is expected to take the matter under advisement and issue a written opinion — possibly early next year.