Judge keeps Missouri's photo voter ID law, with changes

Judge Richard Callahan asks a question as attorneys representing their respective sides in the case of Missouri's voter photo ID law present arguments Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, in a Cole County courtroom.
Judge Richard Callahan asks a question as attorneys representing their respective sides in the case of Missouri's voter photo ID law present arguments Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, in a Cole County courtroom.

Cole County Senior Judge Richard Callahan ruled Tuesday that election officials may not require voters who are "otherwise qualified to cast a regular ballot" to sign a sworn statement, if they don't have one of the kinds of photo ID lawmakers included in the new law.

But, Callahan ruled, except for that change, "the voting scheme adopted by the General Assembly in House Bill 1631 is within its constitutional prerogative under the Missouri Constitution."

Mary Compton, spokeswoman for Attorney General Josh Hawley, told the News Tribune: "We are reviewing the ruling and will continue to vigorously defend Missouri's commonsense voter ID law."

Assistant House Minority Leader Gina Mitten, D-Richmond Heights, said Tuesday evening: "The Republican photo voter ID law was always about suppressing voter participation, as today's court ruling affirms.

"This is a major victory in the battle to preserve the rights of Missouri voters."

Callahan's six-page decision followed his taking three days of testimony two weeks ago, and a couple hours of final arguments last week, in a lawsuit filed last summer.

That lawsuit, filed by a Washington, D.C.-based group, Priorities USA, against the state of Missouri and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, sought to block enforcement of any provisions of the new voter ID law that went into effect July 1, 2017.

That law generally made showing certain kinds of photo ID the quickest way to get a ballot at a polling place on Election Day.

The new law went into effect after 63 percent of the Missouri voters who cast ballots in November 2016 approved amending the state Constitution, to add language allowing the Legislature to pass a law defining specific kinds of identification that a voter would need to prove their identity when voting in-person at a polling place.

But, the lawsuit argued, the 2016 amendment allowing lawmakers to create photo ID requirements didn't change the effect of previous constitutional language that people who are registered properly "are entitled to vote."

Callahan noted the new law offers voters three options when seeking to cast a ballot:

"Option One requires the presentment of a current Missouri driver or non-driver license, current passport, or a military or veterans identification card," Callahan wrote.

He noted 95 percent of Missouri's likely voters already have the proper ID.

"For the vast majority of Missouri citizens," Callahan wrote, "the photo identification requirement under Option One poses no burden whatsoever."

Option Two requires the "presentment of any one of a number of prescribed non-photo forms of identification that were permissible under the previous law, coupled with the requirement that the individual sign an affidavit, under pain of perjury, that they are the person on the identification, and the resident voter."

Option Three, Callahan said, "requires a sworn statement on the provisional ballot envelope that the individual is the registered voter, but otherwise allows the person to vote without presenting any form of identification."

That option allows the election officials to count the ballot only if the voter returns before the end of the election day and shows a proper ID, Callahan noted, or if the election officials can match the voter's signature with their signature on file in the clerk's office.

The lawsuit also sought to block the use of a provisional ballot, but Callahan rejected that complaint.

He wrote the plaintiffs "have not pointed to any authority for the proposition that there is an absolute right to vote despite the lack of any identification."

The judge noted lawmakers gave Ashcroft's office money to promote the legal changes in the new voter ID law, but "these efforts have not resulted in any significant increase of Option One identifications being issued to the thousands of voters who lack such identification."

Citing the Missouri Supreme Court's ruling in the 2006 case over Kathleen Weinschenk's objections to that year's photo ID law, Callahan said the state had a right to ask voters to sign a statement, because "the state has a legitimate interest in preserving the integrity of the election process."

But, he ruled, Missouri's sworn statement went too far, requiring the voter to say he or she didn't "possess a form of identification approved for voting," because they didn't show a photo ID - even though many voters had one or more of the alternate kinds of ID allowed by the law.

The requirement that a voter sign that affidavit when they don't have the right photo ID "impermissibly infringes on a citizen's right to vote as guaranteed under the Missouri Constitution," Callahan wrote.

Additionally, he said, the law required the secretary of state's office to promote the new law, and the evidence presented during the trial "strongly implied that a photo identification card was a require(ment) for voting," even though the state's lawyers conceded during the trial that "a photo identification card is not a requirement for voting."

Callahan prohibited Ashcroft's office "from disseminating materials which represent that a photo identification card is required to vote," as well as from "disseminating materials with the graphic that voters will be asked to show a photo identification card, without specifying other forms of identification which voters also may show."