Suit alleges Missouri laws ‘burden the right to vote’ with confusing rules, deadlines
Three St. Louis-area voters and a national nonprofit that advocates for women are seeking to overturn multiple Missouri election laws they contend create an undue burden on voters trying to safely cast ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Cole County, challenges a notarization requirement Missouri lawmakers set earlier this year for most voters casting ballots by mail. It also targets a deadline that calls for discarding ballots that arrive after Election Day even if they’ve been postmarked by the election.
“Missouri’s mail voting regime is anything but clear, accessible, or fair,” states the complaint, filed by a team of lawyers that includes Marc Elias, general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, and Chuck Hatfield, a longtime Jefferson City attorney whose previous clients include former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.
The Missouri case coincides with a string of legal fights across the nation in the run-up to an election that promises to generate an unprecedented amount of mail voting.
The Missouri suit was filed on behalf of the national nonprofit American Women, St. Louis County residents Nancy Hirsch, 68, and Joseph Iliff, 47, and St. Louis City resident Sarah Manuel, 28.
The suit focuses on the different treatment of Missouri voters seeking to vote by mail and seeks to strike down five policies that it says “operate to severely burden the right to vote—particularly in the current pandemic.”
Missouri has historically restricted absentee voting to people who fall into specific categories, such as being incapacitated due to illness.
The state expanded mail-in voting options this year in the face of the pandemic, but set up different rules for categories of voters. For their votes to count, most must get their ballot notarized before mailing it to their election office.
Voters who are immunocompromised, age 65 or older or fall into one of the pre-existing absentee requirements are exempt from this provision.
Voters getting their ballots notarized must return them by mail. Exempt voters can to return ballots in person. The lawsuit argues this dual system creates unnecessary confusion for voters.
“These restrictions (collectively, the ‘Challenged Provisions’) all but assure that the thousands of Missourians who seek to vote by mail this fall will face a confusing and burdensome regime that will result in widespread, unavoidable, and unconstitutional chaos and disenfranchisement,” the complaint states.
The suit seeks to overturn the mail-in and notary requirements faced by certain voters, strike down inconsistent criteria for which ballots are counted and also eliminate the rule that bans people from collecting ballots to help with their return.
The suit was first reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The suit was filed a week after it was revealed that Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft was warned by the U.S. Postal Service that because of potential delivery days voters should mail their ballots at least a week before Election Day to meet the state’s deadline.
The complaint says that plaintiff Manuel is “concerned that her Mail-In ballot would not count if it were to arrive after the Election Day Receipt Deadline due to well-publicized USPS delays, staff shortages, and budget crises. If Manuel were permitted to return her Mail-In ballot in person, she would certainly use that option instead.”
Maura Browning, Ashcroft’s spokeswoman, said Thursday evening that Missouri has had three successful elections during the COVID-19 pandemic, referring to the March presidential primary, June local elections and August congressional primaries.
She said Missouri “won’t let a frivolous lawsuit distract us from having a fourth.”
Missouri’s differing treatment of voters based on age and other facts contrasts with neighboring Kansas, which has allowed all voters to vote by mail for any reason since 1996 and does not impose the same notary requirement.
This story was originally published August 20, 2020 at 5:21 PM with the headline "Suit alleges Missouri laws ‘burden the right to vote’ with confusing rules, deadlines."
