Challenge to voter ID law heading for appeal to Missouri Supreme Court

By Rudi Keller

Missouri Independent

A challenge to Missouri’s voter ID law will proceed to the state Supreme Court following a Cole County decision upholding the 2022 legislation, opponents said Tuesday.

The decision by Circuit Judge Jon Beetem found the individual voters and organizations that sued — the Missouri NAACP and the League of Women Voters — were unable to show they had been harmed by the application of the law and lacked standing to bring the case.

And addressing the particulars of their challenge, Beetem wrote the burdens were not onerous on any individual voter.

The law requires voters to show a Missouri or federally issued identification that includes a photo, the holder’s date of birth and an expiration date. Identification that has been expired for less than a year is acceptable.

“The individual plaintiffs and/or Missouri voters generally do not have a legally protectable interest in avoiding the everyday burdens of getting an expired license renewed,” Beetem wrote. “Any of the individual plaintiffs’ alleged injuries in this regard are generalized grievances shared by the population as a whole.”

The appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court will argue that Beetem applied the wrong standard to his analysis, said Denise Lieberman, director of the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition and one of the lead attorneys on the case. The focus should be on the sometimes insurmountable burdens that thousands of Missourians face obtaining the documents to secure the needed identification, she said.

“The court got the test wrong,” Lieberman said. “It is the burden of the state to demonstrate it has no other way to advance its interests than through a law that burdens voters in this way.”

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who was the defendant in the case, praised the result as a victory for election integrity.

“To maintain a secure system for voting, it only stands to reason that a photo ID should be essential,” Ashcroft said in a news release.

The timeline for the appeal is uncertain. The ruling will not be final for 30 days, so the high court will not start setting a schedule until that time.

If the law is overturned, it will also end the two week period of “no-excuse absentee” voting that proved its popularity this year. The early voting period was part of a compromise deal to allow the voter ID measure to come to a vote in the Missouri Senate.

Establishing a government-issued photo ID as the only acceptable form of identification for voting is a longstanding goal of Republican politicians in Missouri. Prior to the 2022 law, voters could also present a county-issued voter ID card, a student identification card, a birth certificate or a recent utility bill with their name and address as proof in order to vote.

After the courts rebuffed earlier attempts to enact a photo ID law, Republicans in 2016 placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot that specifically allowed it.

That vote was followed in 2017 by a law that allowed a voter who did not have a photo ID, but who had one of the other forms, to have their ballot counted if they signed an affidavit of their identity.

The Missouri Supreme Court overturned that law in 2020. The law challenged in the decision issued Monday has been in effect since 2022 while the case has been argued.

A voter who does not have proper identification can cast a provisional ballot, which will be counted if they return to the polls with their ID or if their signature matches the one on file.

To succeed in their challenge, Beetem wrote, the plaintiffs had to prove “that there is no set of circumstances under which the challenged provisions of (House Bill)1878 are constitutional.”

They were unable to do so, he wrote. None of the individual plaintiffs had been denied a ballot at any election and the issues they raised — inability to obtain documents proving a name is misspelled or the expiration of an ID and the trouble involved in renewing it — have not been barriers to voting, he wrote.

The issues raised, he wrote, “do not present a substantial or severe burden upon the right to vote.”

The state has an interest in protecting elections and the public confidence they are fair, Beetem wrote. There was no evidence, however, that photo ID had prevented cheating.

“There was evidence that possible voter impersonation has been brought to the attention of local election authorities,” Beeem wrote. “However, no credible evidence was adduced of any voter impersonation which would have been prevented by requiring photo ID.”

Beetem missed that voters lose confidence in elections if they are uncertain if their vote will be counted, Lieberman said.

“Missouri has had a voter ID law on the books since 2002 and it worked fine because it allowed voters to show a range of forms of valid ID, including a voter registration card,” she said.

The organizations backing the challenge said the case needs to be appealed so it is easier for Missourians to vote.

“There’s no evidence of voter impersonation in Missouri, so these extreme restrictions don’t make our elections any safer or more secure,” said Marilyn McLeod, president of the League of Women Voters of Missouri.

The NAACP sees the law as a discriminatory act aimed at lowering turnout among people in minority groups, older adults and students, Nimrod Chapel Jr., president of the Missouri NAACP State Conference said in a news release.

“While these laws aim to fix an imaginary problem,” he said, “the disenfranchisement from the unnecessary and burdensome legal obstacles they create for voters is very real.”

(Photo by Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent)