Can gerrymandered Missouri map be implemented? State, county officials disagree
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- Missouri Supreme Court ruled the new map is in effect, pending referendum certification
- Several county clerks said the Secretary of State gave minimal, contradictory information.
- SOS Hoskins has indicated he may determine the referendum petition to be unconstitutional.
Missouri election officials are scrambling to unravel which congressional map to use in light of Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision upholding the map for now, but leaving the possibility open that it could be reversed.
On Friday, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins insisted that election authorities have enough information to compile new maps.
“The Missouri First map is in effect. Our local election authorities and county clerks need to take those steps in the process, process, and procedures in order to institute the new Missouri First map,” Hoskins said at a press conference, using a name coined by supporters of the map.
Election officials across Missouri who spoke to The Star offer a different picture of what they can do with the information provided by the Secretary of State. To understand the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling on redistricting, The Star called more than 40 county clerks and election officials across the state.
Seven election officials who spoke to The Star said despite Hoskins’ assurance, legal uncertainty remains for their offices.
“It will create at the bare minimum confusion and angst for voters and could potentially cause lawsuits against the county,” said Kurt Bahr, the Republican director of the St. Charles Election Authority.
Counties that are split into new districts aren’t the only ones that say they’re unprepared to implement the change demanded of them by the Secretary of State’s office. Officials in counties that are remaining in the same district and those with the comparatively simple task of moving entirely from one district to another said they’re unequipped to comply.
“Even if I had to do any updates, I can’t do an update right now,” Rachel Lightfoot, the Republican Polk County Clerk, told The Star on Friday. “The ball is in the Secretary of State’s office, in their court, because they’ve got to fix the database.”
Vernon County also won’t be affected by redistricting. But Clerk Adrienne Lee, a Republican, said her office has received mixed messages from the Secretary of State’s Office.
“The Secretary of State has communicated poorly with the county clerks. The information we have received is minimal and contradictory. It is obvious that Secretary Hoskins has not actually run an election, yet he serves as the state’s Election Authority,” Lee said.
Lee said she’s worried about counties that are split between multiple congressional districts, which will have a more complex task at hand ahead of the primary elections.
“I feel bad for the counties that have new splits. I would need a lot more information than we have seen to make a change,” she said.
Sen. Rick Brattin, a Harrisonville Republican who is running for Missouri’s 5th Congressional District, appeared alongside Hoskins on Friday in support of the new map. He said the information provided from when Missouri passed the maps, and the Supreme Court decisions on challenges to the map should be enough for election authorities to implement it.
“They’ve had what this map is all the way since September,” Brattin said. “If you’re this incapable, then maybe we need to find other people to do your job.”
What is the hold up?
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the gerrymandered map passed by lawmakers last fall at the behest of President Donald Trump is currently in effect. But it also left open the door for the map to be retroactively overturned.
The referendum campaign People Not Politicians submitted more than 305,000 signatures to overturn the map and replace it with the map that lawmakers passed in 2022. According to unofficial results maintained by the Secretary of State’s Office, there are more than enough signatures to qualify for the 2026 ballot.
If it qualifies, the map would revert to what was passed in 2022 and Missouri voters would determine what the state’s Congressional districts are via a statewide election. But the Secretary of State said he doesn’t plan to begin verifying that they received enough signatures until the deadline for local election authorities to report them on July 28.
His statutory deadline to qualify them is Aug. 4, the date of the Primary Election, meaning people could vote for candidates in districts later deemed invalid.
Hoskins said he’s going to use “the entire time that I have” to review the signatures before certifying it for election, saying he would ignore people who submitted signatures if he acted earlier.
“Which signatures don’t you want me to count,” Hoskins said. “It’s a double-edged sword.”
Hoskins has also hinted that he may reject the referendum petition even if there are enough signatures, on the suspicion that a referendum on redistricting is unconstitutional.
“It does not make sense that I have until August 4 this year to certify those signatures as being sufficient or insufficient, when that’s the same day as the primary Republican and Democrat primary,” Hoskins said. “So, I do have constitutionality concerns.”
Threats to Boone County Clerk
The first local election official to call out Hoskins over his decision to slow play certification of the referendum petition was Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon, a Democrat. On Wednesday, Lennon wrote a letter to Hoskins that until he determined whether the ballot challenge could proceed, her office would plan to move forward using the same congressional map as in 2022 and 2024.
In a phone interview on Friday, Lennon said state officials’ threats of legal action against local officials who refuse to implement the new map are being made in bad faith. She said her office is “fully prepared” to use the redrawn 2025 map if the Secretary of State’s office updates its voter registration database to reflect the new districts.
Lennon said that as soon as the new maps became available last year, she requested geographic data so that her team could prepare for new voter assignments.
“We’ve gone through the process in an Excel spreadsheet of figuring out all the different changes that need to happen,” Lennon said. “That is the extent of what we can do until the Secretary of State’s office takes action.”
She and other county clerks participated in a virtual meeting on Friday to discuss how to navigate the confusion created by the new map and the pending referendum challenge. Afterwards, Lennon said it was reassuring to hear that she was far from the only clerk with serious concerns about the state’s approach.
“The nature of the group discussion is that we would really appreciate it if the Secretary of State’s office did their part of this project,” Lennon said.
“It’s not a situation where we need all kinds of help and support,” she added. “We need the actual work to be done so that we can do our part of this group project.”
Dueling messages sent to election officials
Hoskins sent a letter to every clerk and election official in the state on Thursday, summarizing the results of the lawsuit and stating that the map remains in effect. A legal opinion from Missouri Secretary of State Catherine Hanaway asserted that the map will remain in effect unless Hoskins certifies the referendum.
Richard Von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians, sent a letter to Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, demanding that he certify the referendum that would pause the gerrymandered congressional map.
“Your repeated public statements that House Bill 1 “is the law” are not just wrong – they are intentionally false and constitutionally meaningless,” Von Glahn wrote. “Your refusal to act is the sole cause of the electoral chaos now threatening Missouri’s 2026 elections.”
Chuck Hatfield, an attorney involved in a number of redistricting lawsuits, wrote an email “to debunk the Attorney General and the Secretary of State’s misstatements.” The email was addressed to every election official in the state, and urged them to do their own research before making a decision.
“We will not know which districts are proper until the Secretary of State does his job and issues a certification,” Hatfield said.
