Four of the men who filed this year as candidates for Congress don't live in the districts they want to serve.
But they meet all the requirements to serve in the U.S. House, if they're elected.
Since the U.S. Constitution went into effect in 1787, Article 1, Section 2 has set only three requirements to serve in the House - that the member:
• Be at least 25 years old.
• Be a U.S. citizen, for at least seven years.
• Live in the state "in which he shall be chosen."
But the U.S. Constitution doesn't list any other requirements.
Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander's spokesman, Kevin Flannery, said last week: "There is no statutory or constitutional requirement that a member of Congress reside in the district he or she represents."
Steve Walsh is U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler's spokesman and, when he was a reporter, once covered Congress.
He said, in an e-mail: "It is uncommon for a U.S. Representative to live in a district outside the one he/she represents. ...
"In Missouri, all U.S. Representatives reside in the districts they represent in the U.S. House."
The federal rules are different from the state's, where Missouri's Constitution requires a member of the Missouri House to be at least 24 years old, a "qualified voter for two years and a resident of the county or district which he is chosen to represent for one year," unless the district borders have just been redrawn.
In that case, a Missouri House candidate must live in the "county or district from which" the new district was taken.
All eight incumbents are among the 48 people who filed for a congressional race in this year's elections.
Kander's office said the candidates include 22 Republicans (six incumbents), 16 Democrats (two incumbents), nine Libertarians and one Constitution Party candidate - and 92 percent of the 48 live inside the district they want to represent.
Two of the four who don't live within the district they want to win filed as candidates in the 3rd Congressional District, which includes Cole, Callaway, Osage, Miller, Gasconade and northeastern Camden counties in Mid-Missouri.
Libertarian Steven Hedrick lives in Warrensburg, well inside the 4th District, about 70 miles west of the edge of the 3rd District.
Republican Joe Frost's Chesterfield home in St. Louis County is inside the 2nd District, several miles from the sections of the 3rd District that are in Franklin and St. Charles counties.
The rest of the 3rd District candidates currently live within the district's boundaries - Democrats Velma Steinman, Jefferson City; and Courtney Denton, Arnold; and Republicans Blaine Luetkemeyer, St. Elizabeth (the incumbent); Leonard Steinman, Jefferson City; and John Morris, St. Peters.
The state's other two outside-the-district candidates both live in the Kansas City-based 5th District, but filed as Democrats challenging incumbent Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, in the nearby 6th District.
Unless they move, none of the candidates who live outside the district they wish to serve can vote for themselves.
State law also says: "Any citizen who is entitled to register and vote shall be entitled to register for and vote ... in all statewide public elections and all public elections held for districts and political subdivisions within which he resides."