Voting Rights Groups Declare “Mission Accomplished” at the Close of the Legislative Session
May 14, 2010
Denise Lieberman, 314-780-1833
Sabrina Williams 202/728-9557 or 305/904-3960
(May, 14, 2010, Jefferson City, MO)—Advancement Project and its allies have successfully defeated repressive voting proposals. Last week, the Senate Financial, Governmental Organizations & Elections Committee voted to bring wrongheaded voting reform legislation to the full Senate, including onerous voter ID requirements and restrictive advance voting provisions that had the potential to disenfranchise more than 200,000 Missouri voters and constitutionally lock the state into an undesirable and unworkable advance voting structure.
The voter identification requirements, the legislature’s fourth attempt to implement such a law since Missouri’s Photo ID law was found unconstitutional in 2006, would have been among the strictest in the country. The Missouri Supreme Court labeled photo id requirements as a "poll tax" and agreed with voting advocates and the research that for “qualified voters, including the poor, elderly and disabled, these hurdles to obtaining the proper photo ID are not insignificant,” finding “these concerns real rather than speculative.”
Voter protection advocates beat back supporters’ claims that the measure would prevent fraud, pointing out that Missouri law already requires voters to present identification to vote, and noting that there has never been a case of voter impersonation fraud in Missouri. No one testified in favor of the bills at last week’s Senate hearings, but Advancement Project was among 16 who testified in opposition to the legislation, including a bipartisan group of local election officials, Missouri Secretary of State’s Office, the Missouri Association for Social Welfare; Service Employees International Union; Missouri National Education and voter Kathleen Weinschenck, who lacks a Missouri drivers’ license and due to her cerebral palsy cannot make a consistent signature, making her ineligible to have her vote counted under the proposal.
Advancement Project welcomed the challenge to fight on behalf of the thousands of Missourians who would be disenfranchised by these proposals, along with our allies we made sure the stories of Missourians who would lose their right to vote were heard. We stopped the political game of smoke and mirrors. The Missouri Constitution provides with unmistakable clarity that the right to vote is fundamental to its citizens. What Missouri legislators should have been focused on were voting reform efforts that will expand the rather than contract the franchise.
Filed under Voter Protection, Missouri
