A Missouri Senate committee heard almost an hour's worth of testimony Monday about two bills that would allow the Legislature to require voters to show specific forms of photo identification before they could vote at the polls.
Last week, the Missouri House passed its version of the idea and sent it to the Senate. But Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, said Monday evening: "We've not decided which bill we're going to move.
"I've been a supporter of requiring a photo ID - making sure a person is who they say they are. ... (So) the resolution will move through."
But, Dempsey said, the issue isn't as important this year as several others the Senate has been working on.
Sen. Will Kraus, R-Lee's Summit and an announced candidate for secretary of state in 2016, told reporters the Legislature could pass a bill next year, since nothing can change in state law without a constitutional amendment.
In October 2006, the state Supreme Court ruled, 6-1, that a similar voter photo ID requirement violated two provisions of Missouri's Constitution in Article I, the Bill of Rights.
Kraus proposes a constitutional amendment that would add a section to Article VIII, the Suffrage and Elections chapter.
"It does not require a photo ID in the Constitution," Kraus told the Senate's Financial and Governmental Organizations and Elections Committee. "It just allows the General Assembly to issue statutory language to require it."
His companion bill would require voters to "produce a nonexpired Missouri driver's license," Missouri nondriver's license; any identification containing a photograph issued by the Missouri National Guard, the United States armed forces, or the United States Department of Veterans Affairs; or a document issued by the United States or the state of Missouri containing the name of the voter which substantially conforms to the most recent signature in the individual's voter registration records (and) a photograph."
His bill would allow voters without those forms of ID to cast a "provisional" ballot that would be counted later, only if the voter produced the proper form of ID or the elections officials were able to match the voter's election day signature with the one on file from when the voter registered.
Kraus also would allow a four-week, no-excuse early voting period.
State Sen. Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph, would allow a two-week early voting period and would require the same kinds of photo IDs that are in Kraus' bill.
He would allow voters to cast regular ballots, but sign an affidavit - under penalty of perjury and possible jail time - that they're qualified voters.
"The truth of the matter is, having an ID really only prevents a person from impersonating another person," Schaaf said.
But both Schaaf and Kraus say requiring a photo ID would give Missourians more confidence in the elections process.
The Missouri Alliance for Freedom supported the bills.
But Secretary of State Jason Kander's office did not.
"We want to change the Constitution, to ram through the most-restrictive photo ID legislation in the country," spokesman John Scott told the committee. "To say that's a safeguard (and) doesn't disenfranchise anyone, doesn't line up with the facts."
And Denise Lieberman, an attorney with the "Advancement Project" that fights for voters' rights throughout the country, argued that three-fourths of the provisional ballots cast in elections never get counted.
She agreed the proposed laws would make Missouri "the strictest in the country."
The committee took no action on the bills Monday.